The Calm Core Loop

Bringing an achievable, celebratory and feel-good motivator to Calm.

The Opportunity

Calm wasn’t making the most of its knowledge that customers who use the app more than once per week were more likely to continue to use the app and renew.

Calm knew that progress was important to customers but its only method of recording progress to date was through daily streaks, which celebrate highly engaged customers but are punishing or meaningless to more casual customers.

The Solution

An understandable, achievable and repeatable weekly goal presented to customers front-and-center, to encourage more engagement with the Calm app.

A shift from the central imagery of the Home Screen from content (what Calm is proud of) to the customer’s progress (what the customer is proud of).

My Role

I worked with UX Research and Data Science to understand both he business opportunity and user problems regarding engagement and the feeling of progress, respectively.

I worked with the executive and design teams to explore how we could best create an understandable and encouraging weekly goal and present it to customers, front and center, without disturbing “the scene” which is synonymous with the Calm brand. be overlaying the customer’s progress on the scene, the progress becomes synonymous with their experience of the Calm brand.

In addition to the work displayed below, I also explored ways we could present easy next steps for a user to complete their progress. While we didn’t go ahead with this route directly, it informed a large, ongoing engagement project that is set to launch in mid 2024.

A Calm customer completes their weekly goal and is encouraged to keep going.

A customer is celebrated for completing day 1 of their weekly goal. This customer has their app set to the “rain on leaves” theme and the palette matches the theme, for a consistent brand experience.

A Calm customer is reminded to engage with Calm each Monday