iOS
SwiftUI
Envol
Holistic healing assistance solution
Downloads across platforms —
12,000
Active users —
over 8,000
Retention rate —
43%
About Envol
Envol is a tool created to assist people healing from chronic illnesses and injuries. Its unique algorithm was created and tried by a person herself recovering from a chronic illness: Julie went from a wheelchair-bound to back on her feet with the help of her partner Tim and holistic practices that she later transformed into Envol.
Envol has an “open-source” medical research backing it up as a healing assistance tool for chronic illnesses and injuries.
Medical papers and literature
- Sunlight
Libermann, J.I 2018, Luminous life
Whitten, A., 2018, The Ultimate Guide to Red Light Therapy
Holick, M. 2016, 'Biological Effects of Sunlight, Ultraviolet Radiation, Visible Light, Infrared Radiation and Vitamin D for Health', International Institute of Anticancer Research, vol 36, issue 3
Holick, M. 2004, 'Sunlight and vitamin D for bone health and prevention of autoimmune diseases, cancers, and cardiovascular disease', The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 80, Issue 6, Pages 1678S–1688S
The science behind Envol
Envol is a holistic healing tool to help users improve their health and feel better.
When the right conditions are combined day after day, our body can recharge, heal and thrive. These conditions, that we call 'nourishments', are the following basic needs:
- Natural light (sunlight)
- Healthy food
- Contact with the Earth / nature (park, sea, beach, forest, etc.)
- Gratitude / Love (for others, for yourself, for life)
- The balance between physical activity and rest (mental rest & sleep)
The positive effect of the above needs / activities on human health has been medically proven in many studies (which we have collected and mentioned on this page below).
All these conditions together and a special algorithm create Envol’s ''Recharge score'', which is an indicator of users’ efforts in improving their health and well-being.
In July 2021, the Envol team conducted a study on 220 participants to assess Envol's effects on health, energy and well-being.
During this 4 week study, users reported that they:
Whitten, A., 2018, The Ultimate Guide to Red Light Therapy
Libermann, J.I 2018, Luminous life, Page 58
Frumkin, H. 2017, 'Nature Contact and Human Health: A Res...
Jabr, F. 2013 'Why Your Brain Needs More Downtime', Scient...
Atkinson, G., Davenne, D., 2006 'Relationships between slee...
What we set out to do
Julie and Tim came to us with an existing Android app for Envol that they wanted to improve. Its main issue was with audio playback for guided meditations and healing music.
The tech side of the original app revealed to be lacking in what we needed to implement the necessary functionality. After discussing it with clients, we decided it would be more sensible — time-wise and financially — to build the new app from scratch and migrate existing users to it.
During discussions, it was also decided that we will simultaneously develop an iOS app.
Target group
The results we received were that, although practicing with Envol can be beneficial for virtually anyone, its target audience consisted mainly of people with chronic illnesses and injuries.
Discovery and UX
We always start development with the discovery processes.
Discovery is the process of verifying the project idea and conducting research in multiple relevant directions to increase the chances of the product’s success. Discovery includes target audience surveys, competitor analysis, and overall market research.
Envol is a unique blend of several types of apps, including meditation apps, wellness apps, and, to an extent, performance and habit trackers. To build a better product, we studied a number of market leaders in the wellness niche and launched surveys among Envol’s original users and Julie and Tim’s social media followers.
More than 60 screens
To better understand Envol's target audience and its in-app behavior, we analyzed the previous app and conducted surveys among existing users. Our goal was to preserve the best parts of the old app and fix its issues in our new Envol.
The results of our research we translated into user personas, customer journey diagrams, and wireframes for the new app. This, in return, helped us build convenient UX, which brought Envol high satisfaction rates from users. Right now, Envol's retention rates are above 40%.
How does Envol help you on a daily basis?
New UI
Along with UX, we also updated the UI, made it more modern-looking in accordance with current trends. We worked tirelessly together with our clients to make the interface look relaxing yet motivating and optimistic.
We went for a combination of somewhat muted colors to let users’ eyes rest and their minds settle. And we’ve chosen colors that call forward positive thinking: sunny yellow for optimism, purple for steady progress, and light blue backgrounds for calm and tranquility.
From colors to icons and buttons, we made the Envol interface charged for healing.
Development
At Mind Studios, we always try to keep constant communication with our clients, updating them on our progress and receiving feedback. This is important to us as we always want to bring the most satisfactory results.
In the case of Envol, communication was superb. Julie and Tim are exceptionally engaged and involved in all aspects of Envol development. We were amazed at their levels of openness and their understanding of their users’ needs.
Julie and Tim provide all the Envol content themselves, including professionally recorded sounds for meditations and 3D journeys, affirmations, and the amazing adaptable algorithm for people struggling with diverse health issues. Our quality communication with them, from daily Slack discussions to frequent video calls, were an immense help to Envol development.
Julie and Tim are also active social media users who communicate with their followers directly. By combining our constant team-client communication with continuous feedback from Envol users via Julie’s social networking, we made timely and appropriate changes to the end product
Frequent and direct communication also played a role in how fast and how well we solved the issues that we had before us.
Quality audio streaming
The biggest issue with the original Envol app was that playback for audio often got interrupted and loaded for too long due to the sheer size of uploaded files. Besides, Envol audio library is being continuously expanded to cater to all users, which created the need for easily expandable storage servers.
What we did
To solve this issue for the new Envol app, we moved to a custom audio streaming that used AWS hosting services.
Now, we upload an original high-quality audio file to AWS S3 where it goes through the AWS Lambda script. The script performs segmentation and creates multiple streams of several qualities. The new files are then placed next to the original file and the user gets the stream that corresponds to their internet speed for the best playback. This way, users get uninterrupted audio playback regardless of their connection quality.
Additionally, Envol has enough space for large audio files.
User migration
Since we ended up making a completely new Android app, we had to migrate all existing users from the old app to the new one without the loss of their data, subscription statuses, and tracking stats. Making users re-register would mean they'll lose all the data they've been tracking in the old app, and that wasn't a valid outcome for us.
What we did
We moved all data except passwords carefully and matched tracking data to users without loss. Now, old users enjoy the new app to the fullest with all their data intact.
Changes in UX
Connected to the previous challenge was another one: with the new UI and UX, some features changed names, others were remade, and some new ones emerged.
What we did
We had to migrate the existing data and match it properly so that the algorithm could continue working properly and users had their correct data. Some of that data we moved manually, others — with the use of technology. It was a huge success for us as a team.
Heart Coherence
Breathing
Visualization music
Inspirational Music
Sound Experience
3D sound journeys
Envol tech stack
See what technologies we used to develop the Envol to make it operate smoothly and stably:
Android
Kotlin
Backend
Ruby
PostgreSQL
Firebase
Stripe
PayPal
APNs
Sidekiq
Frontend
Ghost
Fundraising
At some point, Tim and Julie decided to attract money via crowdfunding to fund further development of Envol. The response was superb — the idea of Envol and its app iteration at the time appealed to many people, which helped raise a considerable amount. So at the moment, we’re working hard to introduce new features to assist people with chronic illnesses on their journey to health.
What’s next for Envol
Envol is an ongoing project for us. At the moment, in addition to new cool features we plan to add, we also work together with Julie and Tim on the tech side of their marketing campaign: the gift codes. Gift codes are exceptionally popular among users of wellbeing services like Envol. Together with the clients, the team works on ways to allow Envol users to gift their dear ones access to this healing assistance tool.
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What users say
I have been meditating for a few years now and I can assure you that Envol is one of the best apps out there... Quality of music, compositions, sound and narrator’s voice are isanely good!
I suffer from chronic insomnia and Envol helps me to improve my sleep... after a few months of use I can say that I almost never make it to the end of the “Deep Sleep” meditation, because I fall asleep before! Thank you for this gift, a journey into the realm of dreams!
I have never experienced this level of relaxation and depth with any other meditations than I have with the ones from Envol!