Project Overview
Virgin Pulse, part of Sir Richard Branson’s famed Virgin Group, replenishes employees with tools that help them build better habits. The Virgin Pulse app for Apple Watch leverages the unique capabilities of the Apple Watch to track wellness activities - steps, sleep and nutrition – all right on the user's wrist. User information syncs automatically with the Virgin Pulse iOS app, making it easy and frictionless for users to track their progress throughout the day.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
The Virgin Pulse App for Apple Watch was commissioned by Virgin Pulse and designed & built by Rocket Insights, a tiny development agency in the seaside town of Newburyport, MA.
Project Brief
Rocket Insights recently partnered with Virgin Pulse, the leader in enterprise health and fitness, to build a new Apple Watch app.
Porting the existing Virgin Pulse iPhone app to the Watch didn’t make sense, so we had to figure out a strategy on what to port over and what to keep on the iPhone. The Watch hardware was undeniably cool, but many of the initial Watch apps were less than compelling for several reasons, including relatively slow performance, unclear interaction patterns, and an overlap of features with a paired iPhone app.
After much discussion, tons of mockups and lots of usability testing, we ended up building a simple, lightweight Apple Watch app that nicely complements the full-featured Virgin Pulse iPhone app while strategically leveraging the unique capabilities of the Watch.
Project Need
The Virgin Pulse App for Apple Watch is notable for three reasons:
1) The development team discovered that the only features worth replicating from the existing Virgin Pulse mobile app were those made better on the Watch. Logging healthy habits through quick swipes - versus a series of screens on the phone - is just one example o
2) After interviewing countless Apple Watch owners, the team learned that the way consumers use Watch apps is very different from the way they use apps on their mobile phone. In a sense, users want the Watch to act as a notification framework for their phone, which drove a very unique notification centric user experience.
3) It is ironic that for such a small screen, there are many different UI elements to consider when building an Apple Watch app. The Virgin Pulse app for Apple Watch has a tremendous number of screens and UI elements - including "digital crown" support - yet the app experience feels lightweight and elegant.
User Experience
Much has been made of the fact that Watch owners do not pull out their iPhone all day like they used do. Instead, they use the Watch to glance at text messages, find out the weather, check the time, etc. This seems to suggest that the Watch can be considered a solid replacement for a lot of the iPhone’s functionality.
So when we dug in and conceptualized the Virgin Pulse Watch app we first focused on replicating what we saw as the main features of the watch. We created a Watch version of each of the features on the iPhone. We built clickable mockups and tested them. What we learned surprised us. Most features were not useful as Watch features...in fact most were actually harder to use there. The small screen size completely changes the game: the larger screen of the iPhone makes most features easier to use because there is just so much more room to display content and actions.
We discovered that the only features worth replicating were those that were actually better on the Watch. Not just the same, but easier, faster, or more delightful. In the end we only brought over the small fraction of the features and worked hard to keep the focus on features made better by the Watch.
Project Marketing
The launch of the Virgin Pulse app for Apple Watch marks another milestone in improving the overall employee experience and fostering productive, thriving corporate cultures.
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Tags
Best Connected Device and Wearable Tech
From not so long ago being a concept only/prototype scenario, the connected device/wearable tech revolution has taken the world by storm and today we have clothing, watches, glasses, jewellery and trackers all helping us to achieve goals such as staying fit, active, losing weight or being more organised.
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