Sunny
Mental health app that helps people strengthen friendships and expand social connections through small science-based actions that anyone can do. It is a digital guide for growing a daily practice of kindness and real-world social connection.
It was founded by a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization called Barnes Family Foundation.
Main problem
In today’s world, people feel disconnected and lonely. Building new friendships and maintaining old connections feels like a heavy ordeal: people think they don’t know how to do it or don’t have time for it because it seems like a burdensome task.
Main challenge
My role
I led design efforts in our team by managing the discovery process and user/market research and collaborated with other designers on the concept testing, and feature set definition. The project involved more phases and steps in addition to those that are presented in the current user study. Here I focused entirely on the parts that I created or led.
Market trend is to empower individuals to proactively manage their health and well-being, foster a sense of community and belonging and meaningfully use data to improve outcomes substantively thereby creating new and innovative ecosystems.
The behavioral health market is predicted to reach $240 billion by 2026 according to a 2019 report → representative of growing interest in digital mental health apps among potential users.
Demand for tele-health and virtual behavioral health care driven by COVID → abrupt and rapid fall into social isolation amid pandemic leads patients online for mental and behavioral health support.
Competitive analysis
There are no direct competitors in the field, so we decided to analyze some of the adjacent apps in the mental health and self-help sphere →
What did we analyze?
The main thing we decided to analyze was the feature set to help us determine and validate what functions are considered industry standards, and we’ll definitely need to implement them. We analyzed the general characteristics of a feature and the various attributes of each one of them, along with general look, feel and ease of use. The app was intended to be content-heavy, so the second main thing we assessed was the content types used in each of the apps. It is a known fact that content is king, and providing quality along with variety could add a real impact and distinguish Sunny from its competitors. Last but not least were the app reviews we collected. We gathered the most praising and negative reviews to assess the strengths and weaknesses of our competitors. Once we had completed our analysis, we were able to get the big picture of what we might or might not want to add to our product.
Insights
The competitive analysis allowed us to find some of the gaps in the market, which allowed us to better plan for our feature set and ensure functionality popularity among target users. Here are some of the findings we gathered:
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Content quality — Lacking variety and depth
Lessons were too basic and the information presented is common knowledge. Content is used as means for increasing user engagement only which fails as users lose interest with stale content.
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Content quality — Lacking credibility
Users prefer apps that are based on scientific evidence. They were more eager to use apps that provide rich information and explanation of mental health issues and methods used to reduce it. This additional information made the apps look more reliable and trustworthy.
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Lacking personalization
Some users complained about their inability to customize the app to fit their needs. Tailoring features like changing reminders frequency, self-selecting habits as well as providing content suggestions based on behavior and health data, goals, tracking activities or daily usage were missing.
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Lack of features
Extremely barebones "checklist/to-do" tend to be less popular among the users and either did not log enough information or did not have enough metrics as people had hoped. Lack of monitoring your journey and progress towards goals is a deal breaker for a lot of users.
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Lack of guidance
Guidance is essential for forming and keeping new habits, and for prompts for journaling. Without these, users cannot gain insights from their journey, making the experience less engaging and interactive. This also applies to the apps' lack of a great introduction to their various features.
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Chat-bot limitations
The main concern for AI powered apps is they aren't that great at having natural conversations. Users feel frustrated they can't ask direct questions and feel that sometimes answers are very predictable. This can get worse when the marketing does not match the implementation.
We launched an online survey using Typeform. About 200 people participated in the research. Some of the questions we’ve asked:
Which areas would you like to improve your connection practice?
How do you feel about making new connections?
How do you most often connect with the people in you life?
How many people do you maintain close contact with?
If you could spend time practicing how to connect better with others would you?
What are the hardest and easiest parts about connecting with other you currently have?
…etc.
Target audience key takeaways
There are no direct competitors in the field, so we decided to analyze some of the adjacent apps in the mental health and self-help sphere →
Possible solutions
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Suggest activities and actions help users get a jump-start on the product functionality. No content "dead-ends".
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Should consider 2 different modes of using the app: exploration mode (with no set goals) and quest, time-based challenges.
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Active profile that reflects users' self state of constant change and evolution (not limited to just tracking progress).
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Consider using simple language for those with English as a second language. Should find the right balance between simple and scientific language.
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The onboarding should begin from learning what matters to users, what they're interested in, and what content might be valuable to them, in order to personalize recommendations.
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Offer calendar-blocking for scheduling repetitive tasks that still take time out of the day — helps users reach their "aha moment" sooner.
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Content should be actionable, might include self reflection and journaling.
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The app should be accessible for people with visual and hearing impairments.
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Personalized push reminders and alerts.
General moodboard
Based on the key marketing and user research takeaways, along with the client's vision, conceptually, we aimed for an inviting, lush feel to the app (versus sterile and utilitarian). The design elements of the Sunny app would be accessible yet sophisticated, fun, and bold, avoiding excessively juvenile. Engaging illustrations and animations are great content that inspires and motivates our future users.
Concept 1 — Sunny as a guide
This is the first concept I came up with that the client also had in mind as a possible option — Sunny as a chatbot, an innovative AI-powered interface with the ability to self-reflect and journal. The advantage of this approach is that it can be made as part of Facebook Messenger, which allows easier access without downloading a separate app. The main downsides of this approach are the navigation and current chatbot limitations that make the app feel unnatural.
Concept 2 — Sunny as a companion
The second concept was more about the onboarding process without defining the app's complete internal feature set and idea. Starting from the user assessment and picking the first challenge to get a jump-start with the Sunny character always being there for your support and reaching out. This interaction is familiar to most users, easy to use, and with expected behavior — a safe option with a nostalgic twist inspired by Clippy from Microsoft Word.
Additional screens and concepts
Concept validation results
✅
Main visual direction and mood
❌
Chat-bot concept
✅
Fun activities and animations
❌
No clear navigation
✅
Choose your own adventure concept
❌
No opportunity to self reflect
✅
It’s not about badges and tracking progress
❌
No sense of completion the task
✅
Nudges to do easy actions
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No keeping track of your own journey so you can reflect on your adventure
✅
Sunny as a guide (always there for your support and reaching out)
The Sunny app was successfully launched for iOS and Android in July 2022.