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Case Study: Mobile App Educational Content

In 2022, I helped a new telehealth brand rewrite their digital therapy program for a mobile app audience.

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THE CHALLENGE

 

This telehealth brand's core product was a digital therapy program available through an app which would teach users better sleep habits to improve insomnia. The program was created by an expert clinical psychologist but was not optimized for the mobile app format in any way.

 

The team knew the user experience would be much better and users would be more likely to continue with the program if the copy was rewritten to fit the digital experience.

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MY ROLE​

 

As the UX writer, I worked with a cross-functional team to transform this educational content into an engaging user experience:

  • With the product management and design teams, we decided which additional design features we had time and capacity to develop before the product launched and which would have to wait for a future iteration.

  • The mobile product designer and I developed a set of recurring components that could be used to break up and highlight copy, then created a system for which elements would be used in which situations.

  • The creative director and I identified which few instances of educational content required custom illustrations, as well as how to produce more generic visuals (icons, banners, and the like) that could be used across the app.

  • Meanwhile, I worked with the instructional designer to edit the copy she had originally created to fit these design elements as well as to read more conversationally.

THE PROCESS

This program consisted of eight chapters of information and exercises, which would ultimately turn into over 300 screens worth of educational content. Here is a short sample of what this content looked like in its original form:

Sleep Consolidation

 

Most people would agree that a shorter night of solid sleep is more refreshing than a longer night of interrupted sleep. Your sleep window will help you consolidate your sleep so that you are spending less time awake at night.

 

Many people make the mistake of spending more time in bed in an effort to sleep more, but for most, this approach makes your sleep difficulties worse! The extra time in bed doesn't lead to more sleep, it leads to more time awake in bed. (much more on this to come)

So while you are working to improve your sleep, your sleep window will be a max of eight hours throughout the program. You’ll decide where this eight-hour window best fits in your life.

Make sure to think about your life responsibilities in the evening and morning when you decide where you believe this schedule best fits. Once you decide your window, you'll stick to it for at least a week.

Your wake time will be fixed and stay consistent no matter how you slept the night before, but your bedtime will be flexible based on how you feel.

You can get in bed when you feel sleepy, but not before your sleep window starts. So you'll get in bed no earlier than your bedtime, but if you're not yet ready for bed- wait until you feel sleepy.

In addition to this long-form copy, I also had a list of basic design components to work with, which included:

  • basic WYSIWYG text blocks written in Markdown

  • "callout" boxes with a colored background

  • tip boxes

  • icon lists

My first priority in working with the copy across the program was to make it feel as interactive as possible, since app users would expect interactivity and were meant to relate to the "voice" of the program as a sort of therapist. However, this MVP version of the app had no real interactive functionality within the educational content itself, and we were also limited in our use of imagery because we did not have enough design resources to create custom imagery for every page of the program.

 

The solution I came up with was to develop a "patient voice" that could speak to the main voice of the app and stand in for the user by asking the questions they likely had. I designated the callout box component to be used exclusively for copy written from the patient's point of view, while the remainder of the text would be written from the therapist's perspective.

My other major priority was breaking up the text as much as possible so it would never feel like you were reading a textbook. Working closely with the clinical psychologist who served as our instructional designer, I imported the text into a spreadsheet, separated it into sections and assigned each chunk a component that would make it as easy to process as possible.

 

I edited the text significantly to make sure the app explained complex concepts in language that was as straightforward and relatable as possible, then went back and forth with my clinical subject matter expert to ensure I represented her teachings accurately. The brand's marketing manager also reviewed to help us solidify the app's overall voice and tone.

Once the content was complete, it was all hands on deck to import it into our CMS, Contentful. We discovered that we were limited to a maximum of 3 design components per screen, which required me to make some changes from my original content plan, and I also took the opportunity to select icons and tweak layouts based on how they appeared live in the app. Finally, it was time to test out the app with a small selection of beta users.

THE SOLUTION

In this example, the lesson is explaining the importance of only staying in bed eight hours per night, even if that means getting less total sleep in the short term, to retrain the body to fall asleep faster and stay asleep throughout the night. I used the "patient voice" purple callouts to explain the idea in a question-and-answer format, "tip boxes" to highlight the most important takeaways from the lesson, and added in an example to help users visualize the idea.​

A mobile screenshot of an educational lesson within an app. The content covers the topic of sleep consolidation and is separated out into various design elements.
A mobile screenshot of an educational lesson within an app. The content covers the topic of sleep consolidation and is separated out into various design elements.
A mobile screenshot of an educational lesson within an app. The content covers the topic of sleep consolidation and is separated out into various design elements.
A mobile screenshot of an educational lesson within an app. The content covers the topic of sleep consolidation and is separated out into various design elements.
A mobile screenshot of an educational lesson within an app. The content covers the topic of sleep consolidation and is separated out into various design elements.
A mobile screenshot of an educational lesson within an app. The content covers the topic of sleep consolidation and is separated out into various design elements.

A series of screens showing content for one lesson from a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia program available via mobile app, built out with a selection of design components

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THE OUTCOME

For user confidentiality reasons, we were unable to look up data on specific users to measure if they were actually restricting their sleep as the program dictates. However, in the initial group of beta users to make their way through the program, 64% logged their sleep in the app, which can be considered a proxy measurement, and the team was quite satisfied with this rate as a baseline.

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