Calm Vibes

An affirmations app from Calm.

The problem

Calm business leaders wanted to experiment with mobile mental wellness opportunities outside of it’s well-established audio content, and had identified the affirmations market as a potential opportunity.

The solution

As part of Calm’s experimentation outside of audio content, a PM, Engineer and I worked together to create a Minimum-Viable-Experience affirmations app for testing on the Apple App Store.

To push this effort forward, we created an initial version of the app to test the affirmations market via advertising both on and off the app store, as well as to measure engagement with a basic set of functions.

My role

When I joined the Vibes team, the app had been put together to the level of a just-about-functional MVP, however it was not App Store ready and was missing the visual, UX and interaction polish that would make it a viable experience for customers on the App Store.

I assessed and made UX and interaction recommendations and changes, as well as mapped out possible future features to ensure what we launched initially wouldn’t hold back further development, should the app be given the go-ahead for more funding.

I created a lively and modern, yet soft design language utilizing as many iOS-available fonts and UI elements as possible in order to keep customization down, the engineering time minimal, while maintaining a high level of polish.

In a subsequent test, we launched a version with Calm branding to understand the Calm’s brand value in the affirmations app market.

Ultimately, the Vibes app wasn’t kept online as a standalone app, but the learnings from the tests helped Calm understand the market and helped drive decision-making within the product team whether Calm should go after more non-audio content and activities in future.