Minditation

Practice your own mindfulness

Overview

This project focuses on providing college students a new option to reduce stress, increase focus and sleep better by listening to binuaral beats therapy while they work on their laptops.

Role

UX Research

UX Design

Prototyping & Testing

Visual Design & Branding


Problem

The difficulty of coping with anxiety and other negative emotions on their own

More and more college students are under pressure due to multiple reasons. 61% of them suffer from anxiety. Other concerns include depression (49 percent), stress (45 percent), family issues (31 percent), academic performance (28 percent) and relationship problems (27 percent). In addition, counselling centers are not avaliable in all schools and a lot of students are too shy to ask for help from counseling services.


Solution

Binaural Beats Therapy

Binaural beats therapy is an emerging form of soundwave therapy in which the right and left ears listen to two slightly different frequency tones yet perceive the tone as one. Proponents of binaural beats therapy liken the effect to that of meditation. Binaural beats therapy is a self-help audio technology that is available to buy worldwide. The purpose for using binaural beats therapy may differ for people. Some need help decreasing their anxiety, while others want to increase their concentration, or deepen their level of meditation.


Competitive Analysis

  • HeadSpace
  • Meditation Oasis
  • Spotify
  • A mobile application for meditation with sessions of guided meditation audios

    Pros

    • Interactive animations
    • Appealing visual design
    • Relaxing audio guides
    • Provides varies of services based on different goals of mindfulness

    Cons

    • Limited access to its library of content
    • Premium subscription is expensive
    • Animation can be distracting
  • A web-based platform that sells meditation mp3s, CDs, podcasts and blogs online.

    Pros

    • Multiple ways to get meditation resources
    • Trustworthy content from experts in the field

    Cons

    • Poor-designed website
    • Outdated resources of content
    • Too many mobile apps for one purpose
    • Little audio available on the website
  • A music streaming platform with all kinds of music and sountracks services.

    Pros

    • Numerous content available
    • Smooth user experience
    • Cool interface design
    • Audios with high quality

    Cons

    • Too many ads for free membership
    • Lots of the binaural beats udios are provided by unauthentic parties

Target Audience

Primary

College student who suffer from stress, concentration issues and insomnia

Secondary

Individuals that interested in binaural beats therapy


Persona

  • Tom Santagato
  • Austin Carter
  • Emily Ou
  • 19 | Sophomore

    B.S. in Business

    Bloomington, Indiana

    Pain Point

    Working out is exhausting and time consuming

    Therapy is usually expensive

    Goal

    Reduce stress from academic life


    "As a business major, I have tons of team projects and presentations to do on a daily basis, which stresses me out all the time. I whish there was some meditation that I could listen to while I was working on my laptop."

  • 20 | Junior

    B.S. in Computer Science

    Atlanta, GA

    Pain Point

    Most of the meditations are expensive

    Easily get distracted by other content online

    Goal

    Increase focus on study


    "I love coding yet it is still very challenging sometimes. I often feel frustrated and unfocused when I try to fix problems. Therefore, I wish I could find something that helps me with that."

  • 20 | Senior

    B.A in Journalism

    New York, NY

    Pain Point

    Mobile meditation applications can easily lead to using phone for other entertainment instead

    Goal

    Improve insomnia


    "Job hunting and school projects brings a lot of pressure and makes it difficult to fall asleep at night, which gives me even more anxiety. I hope meditation can help me stay positive through such a difficult period of time."


Design Question

How might we help college students cope with anxiety and other negative emotions on their own?

Information Architecture

Click on the image to enlarge it


Final Design

Hit of the Day

Users can check out some new audios picked up by the platform.

Take a Questionaire

By clicking on "Take the Questionaire", users can find out the right kind of binaural beats therapy by filling out a survey.

Explore Audios

Users can check out the recommended audio type or click on the binaural beats in the menu to explore all kinds of audios. There will be simple motion graphics in loops to bring up certain vibes while keeping it non-distracting.

Premium Membership

Users can sign up for premium membership if they would like to have full access to all therapies with no ads and high quality of audios


Takeaways

I would like to explore other forms to present the binaural beats to optimize the user experience. For example, a plug-in in Chrome or a mobile application might bring more flexibility to the students.

In addition, I would want to conduct more user testing if given more time on this project, figuring out how well the therapy helps students regarding to stress reducing, focus increasing and better sleep.


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