RVO HEALTH
Project Overview
RVO Health was redesigning the mobile application "Wellos" - a health and wellness tool for those looking to lose weight. The application currently features coaching, tracking tools, recipes, and learning curriculum.
RVO Health was expanding Wellos' feature set to include clinical features and was looking to understand more about competitor experiences, trust and pain points within these clinical care plan experiences to help improve our own.
This generative qualitative research was conducted to better understand how people experience care plans from registered dietitians, healthcare providers and coaches within competitor health and wellness tools. This project overview explains the high-level process of this study, specific details are omitted due to NDA.
Wellos My Plan and My Care tabs - the areas of the product that would be most impacted with the generative research insights
Prior Supporting Research
Before conducting this generative research, prior supporting research that I conducted to support the redesign included:
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Analysis of competitors to understand features offered by similar products in the market and to identify gaps/opportunities for Wellos. This resulted in suggestions of future features to include in the product. This helped us understand the importance of advanced tracking (food, weight, exercise, mood, etc.) features for users to reduce the manual burden of tracking.
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A behavioral analysis of the first time user experience of new users to the product, identifying where there were cognitive barriers and friction points within the product, emphasizing how we could eliminate friction and promote our users to do our key desired behavior (tracking their food, weight, exercise, mood within our tracker tools).
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Concept testing with three concepts of narratives that we could overlay on the future product, to help drive positive behavior and establish a core loop of reinforced positive action for users.
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Usability testing with our task tracker tool, comparing three versions of a task list that keeps users on track with items to do within the app to ultimately get them closer to their goals.
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Analysis of our Wellos 30-day outcome survey, to understand both positive and negative aspects of the application currently and target areas to improve. This included an NPS score and analysis of themes among promoters, detractors and passives.
Generative Research Process Tools
Recruitment + Research Operations
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Dscout
Analysis
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Miro (virtual affinity mapping) + AI tools within Miro
Deliverables
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Google slides
High-Level Generative Research Process
Research Planning
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At the beginning of the year, I work closely with stakeholders to develop a high-level annual roadmap for the year. This roadmap serves as our guide for studies to focus on throughout each quarter. We regularly revisit this plan during my biweekly check-ins with PMs and designers to adjust as needed. I knew this care plan study was going to be a key study to focus on for the year as part of our ongoing referencing and adjusting of the annual roadmap. .
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My research backlog reflects all high-level research questions from the annual roadmap, so we started research planning with a ticket assigned to this study. This backlog is regularly reviewed, edited and prioritized to reflect my team's evolving research needs.
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My team was still new to having a dedicated UXR and more accustomed to conducting evaluative research, so this was a great opportunity to show the impact of generative research. I encouraged them to think about how this exploratory research could help us shape the design of our care plans.
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I met with my key PM/design stakeholders for a kickoff call to gather information on the study which helped me fill out my research study plan template with specifics on this study (including progress on 2025 priorities, key stakeholders, summary, background, related research, business goals, hypotheses, research questions, methodology, timeline/calendar with a link to my quarterly roadmap, recruitment/participant requirements, communication preferences, deliverable, next steps, instruments, out-of-scope/future studies and kickoff notes).
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Key participant requirements were determined through our proto-persona development, and due to our rapid timelines, we attempted to recruit ~3 users in each major user group for a total of 12 users.
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I shared the finalized study plan and screener with my team so they could provide feedback, with deadlines for feedback and the final deliverable detailed in my quarterly roadmap.
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Then, after sign-off on the study plan and screener, I started on the moderation guide for this study and sent it to them for feedback.
Our Research Questions
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What features are top of mind as helpful for users within their preferred health and wellness tool, and how helpful is their digital care plan when considered among these features?
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How do users currently use, or not use, their digital care plans from their app/program?
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How do users feel about their digital care plans?
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How much do users trust their care plan?
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What impacts their trust or lack of trust?
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Data Collection + Synthesis
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This study methodology was determined as qualitative interviews at 60 minutes long with interactive activities (bullseye diagramming, contextual inquiry/screen-share of care plans within health and wellness tools) and ended up including 10 participants due to recruitment challenges.
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Data collection lasted two weeks with rescheduling and cancellations.
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Synthesis was ongoing during data collection, a topline report in the form of an outline with key quotes and emerging themes was shared with stakeholders mid-way through data collection.
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Throughout data collection, stakeholders were sent a "quote of the day" and key update on interviews via Slack.
Bullseye diagram template, a participatory activity to elicit mental models and prioritization of features for users within their current care plans, used during generative research sessions (photo from Miro)
Deliverable Development + Readout
The final deliverable was decided upon during study planning with the team, which we agreed would be a deck with key quotes and recommended prioritization of features for continuing to build our care plan within Wellos.
Impact
This generative, exploratory study will shape the direction of our overall care plan feature within Wellos and will guide prioritization of specific features within the care plan itself.