Tom Bergman

RoundGlass · 2020–2021

A wellbeing app built around video

Design lead on a new wellbeing app spanning meditation, nutrition and fitness, shipped to market. I designed onboarding and the home screen. After I became lead, I rebuilt the home screen’s layout and navigation. Registration completion rose from about 40% to about 60%.

Role
Senior Product Designer; design lead from November 2020
Team
2–3 designers, 1 PM, about 20 engineers
Scope
Native mobile, onboarding, home screen
Brief
Initial onboarding and post-launch updates
The RoundGlass app on an iPhone: a welcome screen with a video course and live sessions.

A mindfulness app for a challenging time

RoundGlass started during the pandemic, when more people than ever were trying mindfulness apps. Most of those apps were audio only. For something as personal as meditation, that’s a real gap. Without a face or a posture to look at, it’s harder to feel connected to an instructor, and harder to copy their form. People were also feeling starved for social interaction due to the ever present lockdown.

My project was a new wellbeing app, starting with meditation, built around studio-quality video and the connection between people and their instructors.

Research

I started by interviewing our target audience and building personas. People preferred apps with instructors they could relate to. Some picked an app purely because of one instructor.

We also talked to fitness and nutrition enthusiasts, since we planned to expand into new verticals. Video turned out to be essential for bonding with an instructor. Some people preferred YouTube over Headspace for meditation because there was a specific instructor they followed. People came to these apps for specific reasons and problems to solve, like stress and anxiety.

Interview notes grouped on a research board under “How are they achieving wellness now?”, with a note about Liam’s daily meditation habit.
Fig. 1Interview notes, grouped by how people were already working on their wellness.
Persona overview for Liam: summary, catalysts, needs, priorities, barriers and apps used.
Persona overview for Kylie: summary, catalysts, needs, priorities, barriers and apps used.
Fig. 2Liam and Kylie, our two mindfulness personas. Liam is all about meditation. Kylie is interested in every corner of wellness.

The MVP journey

The MVP journey was simple. During onboarding we asked what mattered most to you and recommended content to match. From there we tracked which teachers and topics you liked and kept recommending.

Three onboarding screens: choosing what’s most important to you, a recommended course, and a home screen with live sessions.
Fig. 3Onboarding: pick what matters most, get a recommendation, land on a home screen built around it.

Cleaning up the home screen

We launched in spring 2021 to flat numbers: only about 40% of people who started registration completed the flow. When we interviewed users, four things kept coming up. They didn’t know what to focus on. The app felt hard to use. They wanted content served to them, not to go hunting for it. The app felt chaotic. I was now the lead designer of the app, so fixing these issues was my top priority.

The original home screen: a Daily reflection card and a large live event card with a Join button, with headings in all caps.

Only one piece of content fit above the fold

Some content required buttons to be pressed while others didn’t.

The original home screen, scrolled: My activities as a row of cards, a single live session card, and a list of meditations with play buttons.

Some sections swiped or were expanded through disclosure arrows.

Margins, padding and type sizes were too big, so content often didn’t fit

All caps was everywhere, and it’s harder to read

Fig. 4The original home screen, annotated with the problems I found.
The original home screen: a daily reflection card in all caps and a large live event card with a Join button. Before
The rebuilt home screen: Continue your course and Live sessions for you, each a row of cards you swipe. After
  1. One way to browse. Every section is a row you swipe.
  2. Room for content. Tighter margins and type, so more fits.
  3. Fewer all caps. Sentence case, easier to read.
  4. More above the fold. A course to pick up and live sessions to join, before you scroll.
Fig. 5Before and after the home screen rebuild.

Results

After the rebuild, registration completion rose from about 40% at launch to about 60% in the weeks that followed, peaking above 70%. Our data pipeline was basic, so I treat this as directional, but the lift held for the two months we tracked.

What carried forward: pick one pattern and use it everywhere, so people learn it once. It’s the same instinct behind the mobile design system I later built at Calendly.