Developing a comprehensive wellness platform does not have to be overly challenging or expensive. In this article, we explain the process of developing digital health and wellness platforms, which wellness features are important to users, why, and what your users may need from a wellness app.
Although everyone has their unique wellness perspective, we know how to make apps engaging and fulfilling. At Mind Studios, we collaborated with a unique platform, which we've improved to the point where it has overwhelming user satisfaction with a holistic wellness app — Envol. Built from the ground up, it was reinvented from an existing app and is now available on multiple platforms. To learn more about self-care tools, check out our case study on this simple yet amazing app.
Significance of wellbeing activities platforms
The digital wellness industry is growing due to increased smartphone usage worldwide and rapid technological advancement. Rising data usage, broad internet use, and increased promotional offerings such as subscription discounts are all driving growth in the business. The wellness industry's operational model will change dramatically in the next years due to advances in information technology. The health and wellness coaching market is expected to bring in $17.37 billion by the end of 2024. This projection shows a 9.97% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) for 2024-2028 and a $25.40bn market volume by 2028.
[Source: Statista]
What are the drivers for this growth in popularity, besides easier access to technology and content?
People are increasingly concerned about their health. Challenges such as managing weight, navigating stress, and maintaining a balanced lifestyle are becoming more prevalent, especially among younger people. These concerns are often influenced by various factors like jobs that require prolonged sitting, dietary choices, and stress.
In essence, fitness and wellness applications provide easy-to-use tools for tracking and improving physical and emotional health. These applications offer people the tools they need to live healthy lives by monitoring their activities and sleeping patterns and receiving individualized advice. Furthermore, they provide insightful commentary that promotes introspection and inspiration.
There are multiple types of health and wellness apps, some of which also fall into the lifestyle app category. Here are the main categories and what they provide users.
Fitness apps
Sports and fitness applications often include monitoring systems and performance data, allowing users to set goals and work towards them over time. Numerous sports and fitness apps come with these features; for example, fitness applications such as Nike Run Club, Fitr, and Engage Well-Being mobile app.
Diet and nutrition apps
These apps provide users with nutritional information and may also be marketed as weight loss apps. Diet and nutrition applications provide calorie counters and educational content about dietary requirements. Some fitness applications, like MyFitnessPal, will integrate diet and nutrition elements. This program has a big food database, a barcode scanner, and a recipe importer to assist users in keeping track of their nutritional intake.
Meditation apps
Meditation and relaxation applications are intended to aid users in meditating. For example, applications like Calm and Headspace provide users with pre-recorded meditation sessions to help them with sleep, anxiety, and overall well-being.
Sleep apps
These apps can track how well users sleep, provide tools to help users improve their sleep, and exchange data. These are simpler apps that are more focused specifically on sleep quality and sleep patterns. For example, sleep applications can employ sound recordings to detect restless sleep and sleep tracking to help you maintain a consistent sleep pattern.
Best practices and core features of wellbeing apps
Even though digital wellbeing products are growing in popularity, there is a lack of understanding about how to design for them. Even less well-established is the idea of how to make the app's use worthwhile and fulfilling for the user, particularly how to keep them interested as they use it. If you are looking for ways to increase engagement in wellbeing apps, below is the list of the best practices you can use.
Assess user needs
Before developing a wellbeing platform or app, you must understand your audience's needs. Conduct surveys and interviews to understand their wellness challenges, preferred learning modes, and relevant topics. Tailoring the program to user interests builds community and encourages active participation in the health app.
Collaborate with hired advisors
Invite experienced experts to enhance your app's training programs by sharing their knowledge of wellbeing-related topics. Professionals like certified fitness trainers, dieticians, or mental health specialists can provide valuable insights, research-backed facts, and practical advice to improve the learning experience.
Integrate gamification
Gamification is an effective method for increasing involvement in wellness apps and training activities. Include quizzes, challenges, leaderboards, and incentives in your program. Turning learning into a game encourages people to actively participate, remember the material, and use it in their daily lives.
Focus on personalization and customization
Recognizing diversity is critical, especially in fitness and wellness apps, as one technique does not suit everybody. Provide individualized training routes, allowing users to select modules or topics that are relevant to them. This autonomy increases user engagement and relevancy, encouraging people to interact actively with the training content.
Embrace collaborative activities
Implementing discussion forums, online communities, or mentorship programs might help to increase social engagement and collaboration. Encouraging people to share their experiences and support one another fosters camaraderie, which enriches the learning process.
Track and evaluate progress
Establish clear evaluation criteria to assess the effectiveness of the training and wellness programs. Monitor critical indicators such as participation rates, knowledge gain, behavior change, and user feedback regularly. Use this information to enhance and optimize your training activities, ensuring they fulfill user needs and are consistent with overall goals.
Essential features to include
While it's true that wellness and fitness programs come in all kinds and shapes, it's still crucial to know what features your app might or might not need. Different apps require different features, and we've compiled a list of features found in popular wellness and fitness apps. Not all of them might be necessary for your application in particular, of course, you should select the most appropriate for your app's intended purpose:
Wellness Apps
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Analytics | Provide users with insightful data to monitor their progress and optimize their routines. |
| Geolocation | Enable users to map their activities, offering a comprehensive view of their workout journey. |
| Consultation | Offer expert advice on nutrition, fitness, and overall well-being to support users in achieving their goals. |
| Social integration | Foster a sense of community by enabling users to share achievements, engage in friendly challenges, and connect with peers for support. |
| Favorites | Allow users to curate their experience by bookmarking preferred content, ensuring easy access to personalized sessions and workouts. |
| Heart rate monitor | Integrate wearable device compatibility for users to track their heart rate, gaining insights into their cardiovascular health. |
| Step counter | Keep users motivated by allowing them to track their daily steps and running routes. Set customizable targets to help them stay on course with their fitness goals. |
| Geolocation | Enable users to map their activities, offering a comprehensive view of their workout journey. |
Dietary apps
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Dietician advice | Offer expert advice on nutrition, dietary preferences, and instructions to help users reach their goals. |
| Meal tracker | Simplify dietary management with a comprehensive food and water tracker featuring time-saving barcode scanning for effortless logging. |
| Personalized recommendations | Enhance user engagement with tailored content suggestions, leveraging data insights to deliver a personalized experience. |
Mindfulness and sleep apps
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Analytics | Provide users with insightful data to monitor their progress and optimize their routines. |
| Geolocation | Enable adjustments and valuable insights into sleep quality based on location, weather, moon phase among other factors. |
| Sleep tracker | Help users prioritize rest by monitoring sleep patterns, offering insights to optimize sleep quality and overall wellness. |
| Mindfulness and meditation | Bring several potential advantages, such as alleviating stress and anxiety, sharpening concentration, and improving sleep. |
If you need help with additional ideas on boosting user engagement, feel free to contact us for a free consultation. Our business analysts will gladly help validate existing ideas and develop ways to improve user experience in existing apps.
When it comes to mindfulness and meditation apps, we have a good example of how some of these features can be used to boost user engagement which we included in an app we helped develop and continue to improve.
Guided meditations
Envol's guided meditations and resources allow users to control their burnout and alleviate discomfort. An app provides tools and guided meditations to help users cultivate a healthy self-image and balance their emotions.
Breathing
To further aid users in controlling their stress and enhancing their physical well-being, Envol also provides breathing exercises. The goal of breathing exercises is to help people feel more energized and concentrated by reducing muscular tension and encouraging deep relaxation.
3D sound journeys
The app's 3D sound excursions are also a major selling aspect. These aid users in achieving emotional balance and mental clarity through binaural beats, visualization of music based on the law of attraction, solfeggio frequencies, and affirmations. These tools can train your mind to concentrate, let go of bad ideas, and boost your mood.
Focus practices
Lastly, Envol provides resources to help users concentrate and focus, such as visualization exercises and techniques to enhance cognitive performance. Using these features, users can maintain concentration and productivity even in high-pressure situations.
Future trends in wellbeing technology
There’s a lot coming to wellbeing tech this year. 2024 brings dramatic developments that mirror the dynamic movements in global trends and users’ perceptions of wellbeing apps. The quest for user satisfaction takes center stage, emphasizing technology integration, individuality, and complete assistance. Below are the main trends in fitness and health app development this year:
Accessibility
Ease of access is essential for overall wellbeing. As lifestyles evolve, digital platforms are enhancing accessibility through user-friendly features. Inclusivity is paramount, addressing diverse needs to ensure everyone can access wellbeing services, regardless of their circumstances.
The key to making a wellness app accessible to people of different abilities and backgrounds is ensuring the user interface is simple to understand and navigate. One such example where we adapted the UI from an existing app for a diverse user base is the Envol app.
Next, language localization can accommodate more people, and diverse audiences while representation can cater to different cultural and demographic groups. To make the app more accessible and user-friendly, prioritize features like screen reader support, adjustable contrast, and multiple font size options. Finally, always ask for user feedback to fix problems and make the app more inclusive.
Flexibility
In today's landscape, customization and adaptability will be the main focus for wellness program developers. Tailored solutions cater to individual preferences, with mobile platforms offering on-the-go support. Partnering with diverse wellbeing apps broadens the range of options, empowering users with personalized choices for their mental and physical health.
Gamification
A study conducted in 2022 found that 80% of teenagers and 20% of adults do not meet the physical activity levels recommended by the World Health Organization for optimal health. Making fitness activities easier and more pleasurable is critical to address this issue.
Fitness apps have already implemented gamified features that improve on the traditional workout routines, since those can become monotonous and demotivating for some users. This trend includes fun game-like aspects like leaderboards, achievements, and points to help users motivate themselves and push forward. As a result, individual workouts become more enjoyable and social.
Gamification is a growing trend in the health industry that every organization working with fitness and wellbeing apps and platforms should be aware of.
Virtual and augmented reality
Fitness apps are upping their game by including virtual and augmented reality capabilities in recognition of the challenges associated with starting and sustaining a fitness journey. Exercise becomes more enjoyable when AR and VR are integrated into fitness apps, helping alleviate time constraints in people's hectic lifestyles.
VR creates an immersive gym experience, whereas AR makes boring at-home routines more fun. Implementing AR and VR in fitness apps eliminates the need to physically visit a gym or search for exercise videos when the app has all the appropriate content.
Furthermore, AR and VR technologies allow users to create tailored fitness experiences from the convenience of their own homes. This combination of technology removes obstacles, allowing people to prioritize their well-being and health.
Telemedicine integration
The increasing usage of telemedicine is ushering in a dramatic transformation in the healthcare business. This trend is followed by health and fitness apps promoting a more holistic approach to health care solutions.
Telemedicine technology lets consumers quickly schedule virtual appointments with medical professionals. They can also use machine learning algorithms to analyze their health information.
Fitness apps may also be useful in detecting potential health issues and recommending immediate medical attention. Telemedicine integration represents a bright future where individuals can access more comprehensive and complete healthcare treatments.
Wearable technology
Wearable technology has altered how we approach fitness and well-being by providing real-time information about our physical activities, sleep patterns, and heart rate. As technology advances, health apps are becoming more integrated with wearable devices, providing a smooth user experience for tracking their health information in real time.
MarketsAndMarkets analysts project that the wearable health device market will be worth roughly $265.4 billion by 2026. This technological combination advances health monitoring and makes it easier to detect physical health information.
Holistic approach
Wellbeing in 2024 extends beyond physical health to match the preferences of users that wish to improve their wellness and fitness levels. Holistic wellness apps target multiple health elements at the same time and emphasize treating persons as a whole, combining physical, mental, and emotional well-being — via tools and resources on nearly everything, from stress management strategies to exercise tracking. With a holistic approach, like in an Envol app, measuring the impact of wellbeing initiatives involves more than just quantitative indicators. It also considers other factors such as user satisfaction, wellbeing app user engagement, and a sense of community.
AI-backed personalization
AI-powered personalized wellness programs are expected to transform well-being in 2024. These apps, which provide advice based on individual health data, are becoming increasingly popular among users.
While typical fitness applications offer basic regimens, AI takes a step further by tailoring training to individual needs and habits on-the-go, as users exercise. This customization boosts user engagement and motivation, since it enhances program efficiency, and users tend to stick with a fitness program that helps them reach their goals.
One of the most significant advantages of AI in fitness app development is its versatility. Machine learning algorithms can continuously assess users' progress and adapt their training program accordingly. If a user reaches a plateau or shows no signs of improvement, the AI can adjust the intensity, length, or type of workout to maximize results. This versatility ensures that users have a dynamic and effective training experience.
Emphasis on mental health
Mental health will play an even larger role in 2024 compared to previous years, with a stronger emphasis on prevention and assistance. Today’s many initiatives focus on stress management, reduction, and resilience development to treat burnout proactively. Changes in how wellbeing apps address these issues are expected to encourage work-life balance and destigmatize mental health talks, establishing a supportive atmosphere for everybody, particularly within the digital wellbeing app communities.
Holistic approach to wellbeing: Mind Studios experience
As wellness platforms continue gaining traction, more success stories are emerging. This is the story of how the Mind Studios team, who have been working with the healthcare and wellness industry for over a decade, contributed to one such success story.
‘We are actively working with the MindStudios for more than 2 years now and it has been an absolute pleasure. They deliver high-quality work, brainstorm with us on ideas and are capable of turning all ideas into reality. We will continue to work with them in the future!’
Tim van Driessche, Co-founder of Envol
Envol
With over 8,000 users and 12,000 downloads, Envol has proved to be an innovative solution for holistic wellness support. Envol, created by Julie Morin and Tim van Driessche, two forward-thinking entrepreneurs, uses open-source medical research to encourage health via lifestyle changes and holistic practices.
Mind Studios helped develop a new Android app from the ground up based on user feedback, fixing issues like audio interruptions and storage limitations. Ultimately, Mind Studios delivered a faultless user experience and data integrity preservation during the data migration from the initial app.
By developing a separate iOS app, Envol has made its life-improving features available to even more people. Envol app has earned acclaim for its impactful contribution to digital wellbeing through meticulous attention to detail and a commitment to excellence.
Summing up, Envol's ongoing evolution is a great example of how companies can improve their digital wellness products. Mind Studios is well-positioned to assist businesses in fostering holistic health among their users, thanks to our track record and commitment to user satisfaction. If you’d like to learn more about the Envol project, you can read our case study.
Final thoughts:
Putting the well-being of your app or wellness program customers first is crucial for building a thriving environment. Consider investing in personalized wellness programs to foster optimism and a healthy lifestyle for your audiences. These programs provide insights into individual requirements and access to resources for health and wellness.
Mind Studios can assist you if you want to make a difference but aren't convinced your wellness program is effective. Contact our experts today to discuss or validate your project ideas and how we can work together to take it to the next level.
