Role
App
UX Designer - UX Researcher
HealthyHand
Responsibilities
User Research / Wireframing / Prototyping / Usability Testing / Design Systems / Accessibility
Project Overview
HealthyHand is more than just a locator app—it’s a movement toward better living. By connecting users with health-focused businesses and services, we’re fostering a culture of wellness and sustainability. As the Lead UX Designer and Researcher for HealthyHand, I played a critical role in shaping the app’s user experience and functionality. My responsibilities included:
User Research & Insights – Conducting in-depth user interviews, surveys, and usability testing to understand the needs of health-conscious consumers.
Experience Design – Creating wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity designs to ensure a seamless and engaging user journey.
Information Architecture – Structuring the app’s navigation and layout to make it intuitive and easy to use for locating wellness services.
Accessibility & Usability – Ensuring the platform is inclusive and user-friendly, following best practices in UX and WCAG guidelines.
Project Overview
The Problem
Many health-conscious individuals are struggling to find reliable and convenient resources to discover and access healthy places that can support their health improvement goals.
They face challenges in locating fitness studios, healthy restaurants, wellness centers, and other relevant venues that align with their preferences and requirements for a healthy lifestyle.
This lack of easily accessible information hinders their ability to make informed choices and maximize their health improvement efforts.
Project Overview
The Solution
Develop a user-centered digital platform that empowers health-conscious individuals to easily discover and access a wide range of healthy places that can support their health improvement goals.
Through a seamless and intuitive user experience, the platform will provide comprehensive and up-to-date information on fitness studios, healthy eateries, wellness centers, and other relevant venues in their desired location.
By addressing the need for reliable and convenient resources, our platform enables users to make informed decisions and seamlessly integrate healthy places into their lifestyles, ultimately supporting their journey towards improved health and well-being.
Project Overview
Design Process
For Healthy Hand, I followed a structured UX design process to ensure a user-centered, research-driven approach while aligning with business goals. Here’s the UX design process I used:
Empathize – User Research
To begin the design process, I conducted UX research to understand the challenges patients faced. The research included:
User Surveys: Engaged with individuals to understand their day-to-day needs and frustrations.
Stakeholder Workshops: Worked closely with internal stakeholders to align product goals with user needs.
Empathize – User Research
User Surveys
A survey was conducted to understand the user experience and preferences of individuals seeking healthy places, such as gyms, restaurants, and recreational areas. The survey was conducted online and received responses from participants across different age groups and geographic locations.
Key Insights & Pain Points
Importance of improving health:
80% of participants indicated that improving their health was extremely or very important to them.
Types of healthy places of interest:
Healthy restaurants or cafes (88%) and fitness centers or gyms (76%) were the most commonly sought-after establishments.
Parks or outdoor recreational areas (52%) and healthy grocery stores or markets (40%) were also of interest.
Overall, the survey results indicate that improving health is highly important to the participants. Healthy restaurants or cafes and fitness centers or gyms are the primary places of interest.
Participants primarily rely on online search engines and recommendations from friends or family when searching for these establishments. Variety of healthy options and a clean environment are crucial factors in their choices.
Lack of information and limited options are the main challenges faced. By addressing these challenges and providing a satisfying user experience, businesses can enhance their appeal to individuals seeking to improve their health.
Define - User Insight & Personas
Based on the research insights, I identified the core user personas:
During the ideation phase, I led brainstorming sessions with the cross-functional team to generate solutions that directly addressed the identified pain points. Through these collaborative sessions, we developed several key features and concepts, including:
Map Locator - The map locator is a function that allows you to narrow down your options of healthy places to choose from via general popular prompts such as: parks, healthy foods, or clinics and by search. With this feature, you can find a local establishment that can help you with your healthy needs.
Personalized Search & Filters – Users can filter businesses based on categories like organic food, mental health services, fitness centers, holistic wellness, and eco-friendly stores to match their specific needs.
User Reviews & Ratings – A trusted review system where users can rate and share experiences at wellness locations, ensuring transparency and credibility.
Save & Favorite Locations – Users can bookmark their favorite places for easy access and create custom lists of go-to wellness spots
Community Engagement – The community tab features a social space for users to leave reviews on healthy places in their local area they have been to. This gives people in the healthy hand community a sense of security and clarity to make informed decisions, in regards to their participation in these places.
Ideate – Concept Development
Ideate - Concept Development
Applying UX Laws
Several UX laws can be applied to HealthyHand to enhance usability, engagement, and overall user experience:
Hick’s Law – Simplify Decision-Making
Since users may feel overwhelmed when searching for health-conscious businesses, reducing the number of choices per screen (e.g., progressive filtering) can make decision-making faster and more intuitive.
Jakob’s Law – Familiar Navigation Patterns
Users expect HealthyHand to function similarly to other location-based apps (e.g., Google Maps, Yelp). Adopting familiar UI patterns—like search, filters, and interactive map interfaces—reduces the learning curve.
Fitts’s Law – Optimized Tap Targets
Ensuring that interactive elements, such as search buttons, filters, and location markers, are large and easy to tap improves usability, especially for mobile users.
Miller’s Law – Chunking Information for Clarity
To prevent cognitive overload, information such as business details, reviews, and ratings should be structured into digestible sections with clear headings.
Aesthetic-Usability Effect – Trust through Visual Appeal
A clean, modern, and visually appealing interface will increase perceived usability, making users more likely to trust and engage with the platform.
Doherty Threshold – Optimizing Response Times
Ensuring fast load times when searching or filtering businesses keeps users engaged. Real-time feedback (e.g., loading indicators, skeleton screens) can maintain engagement even if delays occur.
Design - Prototyping Solutions
I created wireframes and interactive prototypes using Figma to visualize the design concepts:
Paper Wireframes
Low-Fidelity Prototypes
High-Fidelity Prototypes: Developed high-fidelity prototypes with detailed UI elements and accessibility features, including adjustable font sizes, color contrast adjustments, and screen reader compatibility.
Design - Prototyping Solutions
Paper Wireframes
Design - Prototyping Solutions
Low-Fidelity Prototypes
Design - Prototyping Solutions
High-Fidelity Mockups
Design
Design System
Design - Prototyping Solutions
Figma Prototype
Takeaways
By integrating an intuitive map search with category filters, the app makes it easy for users to find health-conscious businesses while fostering engagement through reviews and community interactions. Through collaboration with stakeholders and developers, HealthyHand successfully bridges the gap between users and wellness-focused services, paving the way for future scalability and innovation.
Next Steps & Reflections
The development of HealthyHand was driven by a deep understanding of user needs and a commitment to making health-conscious living more accessible and convenient. By addressing key pain points—such as the difficulty of finding reliable wellness-focused businesses and the lack of a community-driven recommendation system—creating a platform that empowers users to make informed, health-first choices effortlessly.
The next phase of HealthyHand focuses on optimizing the search experience, refining recommendation algorithms, and integrating social features to enhance user engagement. This project underscored the significance of user-centered design and how community-driven insights can shape a more effective and intuitive platform. Moving forward, continuous usability testing and iteration will ensure the app evolves to meet user needs seamlessly.