Ensu

Use your music listening to understand and
manage your moods
Mobile App Design
Company
Ensu is a mobile app founded by Amol Avasare, Travis White, and Chris Robeck. They all had personal experiences with mental health issues and found out through user interviews that teens these days like to listen to music when they feel down. After drilling into it, they found that there is a clear correlation between music and their mental state. With that in mind, they started this company in order to help young teens be more aware of their mental wellbeing and track their mood in an easy and simple way.
Tools
My Role (Product Designer)
I led the design of the UX/UI for the Ensu mobile app and website. I collaborated with the Head of Product and engineers for ideation, whiteboarding and was the main contributor for pre-launch stress testing and bug hunting. I also supported the Head of Product in user research and in producing key deliverables (user interviews, personas, user journey, user testing, etc.).

Challenge

Teens, especially those in the 16-20 age range, generally find themselves becoming more aware of their mental wellbeing. Mental heath used to be an unspoken topic and many students tend to not mention their struggles since the only way to get help was getting counseling and rehab. We wanted to provide a solution to help young teens manage their mental health in an easy and non-stressful way.

Our vision is a world where managing mental health is straightforward, collaborative, and accessible.
Design Goals
OLD USER JOURNEY

Based on the old user journey, users weren’t able to get enough information about their mood in correlation to their music listening data. The social aspect was difficult to use and was missing the ability to reach out to friends.

Discovery & User Research

Ensu’s target market is teens who care about their mental health, and want to improve and view their overall wellbeing in a non stressful way
It was exceptionally important to get valuable feedback from users, have quick turnaround on designs to test, get more feedback, and iterate on it.

USER INTERVIEW

To understand the mindset of a potential user, their pain points, and their needs, we set up user interviews and screened potential candidates through Reddit. We also created a Discord channel and invited many users from the interviews and student groups who were interested in becoming our beta community. We would constantly engage with them in Discord, set up follow up interviews for feature ideation, clarity improvements, design feedback, and internal bug hunting.
Based on the interviews, the head of product/ user researcher found out that the interviewee’s most common app feature needs were:

• Easy, burden free mood tracking via music listening
• Music mixes for different moods
• A social aspect to be close to friends and help each other
• Something really compelling and high value for first time users

COMPETITIVE RESEARCH

We performed competitor analysis on a variety of health apps in order to gain a better understanding of the competitive landscape.
By comparing the app features,
we found out that:
• All apps have some sort of mood tracking and statistics, but everything has to be manually entered. There is no passive way of tracking moods.
‍
• There wasn’t a compelling historical display of your past moods

• No app has a social feature where you can connect and support each other, or a feature that uses music to improve your mood (not podcasts or meditation, but music from artists that you love)

USER PERSONA

After speaking with a broad spectrum of individuals on their mental health goals and mobile app feature desires, we were able to figure out their needs.

Ideate & Iteration cycles

Brainstorm

With these goals and pain points in mind, the product and technical team would sit down to whiteboard and ideate. Based on different solution ideas, I would implement the ideas by creating sketches and wireframes, while the head of product would get feedback from users and stakeholders immediately so we can have faster iteration cycles.
Each of those screens was a different design sprint. We had multiple iterations and testing cycles before our Round 1 designs.

ROUND 1 DESIGNS

• Unclear how to check in
• Unclear which ones are mood calculations by Ensu

• Need more beat variations
• Gets old if everyday is the same status

• Feels like a meditation app
• No desire to click into music  mixes

• Social actions aren’t obvious
• Don’t want friends to see
 their mood charts

ITERATION

The final product was built on multiple design sprints and numerous iteration cycles based on user feedback and usability testing. Through qualitative user research (usability testing), we found out if users had difficulties completing certain tasks. It gave us insight into what and where to iterate on.
Based on user and stakeholder feedback and multiple rounds of iterations, we went with these versions because:
Based on user and stakeholder feedback we went with this version:
• Highlights the to-do actions without cluttering the screen real estate and taking away focus
• Improved clarity around mood calculations and added explanation
• Cleans up layouts and categorization of sections
• Jumping directly into questions instead of an extra click
• More focus on one use case of “finding music to help” instead of combining features that bring less clarity on the desired action
• Taking technical constraints into account
• Clarity around which one is the user's and which one is the friend’s profile
• Users desire to see their listening history with less clicks
• Easier to understand which ones are social actions

NEW USER JOURNEY

The new journey map shows a more delightful experience for the user with improved features.

• More data and insights about their mood and music
• Passive mood tracking abilities with Ensu AI based on their listening history
• Improved social feature to reach out to loved ones in need

Design System and Brand Guidelines

With our target users and position statement in mind, “For teenagers and young adults, Ensu is the app that uses your music listening to help you understand and manage your moods”, I rebranded Ensu to match with our demographics and incorporated gradient colors, that reflect how your mood can be rich in emotions, just like the colors.
Brand Guidelines
DESIGN SYSTEM

Final Designs

CONCLUSION

• We were able to create an organic marketing channel. Tiktok influencers posted videos and articles about Ensu and we were able to increase new users up to 190%.
• Our live users increased 7% and the numbers remained consistent for 3 weeks
• We had a significant increase in DAU (36%) and WAU (51%)
• Unbounded retention went up to: D2- 43%, D7- 30%, D-14 20%
• D2 session has significantly increased by 39%, which suggests that users are coming back to the app
• Overall time on the app increased by 43%
• Mood and Music insight breakdown was the most popular feature for re-engagement
• Social features (create + receive surprise) contributed to long term retention

What I learned:
‍
• Team collaboration and good communication are very important
• Design sprints and quick iteration cycles based on user feedback saved a lot of engineering time
• The solution and product should always improve. Do not be afraid of changes. Change is good
• Focus on a use case instead of trying to solve them all
• Do not compromise clarity
• Think about first time users and edge cases
• Stress testing is important to catch as many bugs as possible before launching

Final Takeaway

This startup helped me extend my design skills by taking on more responsibilities and being proactive in self-learning as the sole designer. I was able to work efficiently and independently as needed. At the same time I learned to be a good team player, adapt and adjust to feedback with a positive mindset.

Our multiple design sprints pushed me to work quickly and generate fast turnaround during high-pressure situations. Being able to think more about user expectations and the look and feel of the mobile application was a great learning curve. This includes a lot of iterations around clarity improvements and the first time user experience.

The time at Ensu not only helped become a better designer, but also on my self-discovery journey on what it means to be a better person, team-player, and become someone that can bring positivity and smiles to the team during difficult times.

I am very thankful for my experience, the team and the learnings at Ensu

For the best experience, please use a laptop or browser to view the case study.

Back to projects
FacebookLinkedin