Mobile + SaaS platform for remote nutrition services
A more streamlined way to find, book, and consult with experienced nutritionists remotely to easily achieve health goals in various areas of nutrition.
What's StayWell Nutrición
StayWell Nutrición was a platform built to connect people seeking professional nutrition services with reputable practitioners in their specific field of need without being limited by region.
Why we built StayWell in the first place
Nutrition services are nothing new, but there is a big limitation on how the market works. Most of the time, you only can find what's near you and visit in-person. But what if there's a better choice that's outside your area?
The problem for people seeking nutrition services
Professional services for nutrition advice are mostly limited to local and in-person sessions without much flexibility. For those who offer remote services, the process of booking and attending remote sessions is unnecessarily complicated
People are always skeptical about online search results and wonder if they are actually proven and true. So, instead, a lot of people prefer to seek reliable advice from real-life professionals to achieve their health goals, but most services are in-person sessions limiting people to their local area only.
This leads to people not being able to access more quality services that could be offered elsewhere. And the few online offerings available have complicated processes requiring various platforms for scheduling, payment, communication, and video sessions separately. People are looking for an easier way to connect.
The problem for nutritionists and dietician
Handling multiple platforms for different management needs is not productive. Maintaining the custom ecosystem is time-consuming and costly and there are no easy ways to offer a convenient all-in-one experience for clients outside their region of practice
Sharing the frustration with clients, professionals don’t find productive the process of handling multiple platforms for different needs. Appointment booking tools, spreadsheets for client management, financial and payment platforms, website building and maintenance, and more, it's just too much to handle. And given the nature of the not very tech-savvy demographic of nutrition professionals, it can be a heavy lift for solo-practitioners.
They wished there was a simpler and easier way to manage their business in one place while also gaining more exposure in other regions.
Who we built this product for
The Clients
Need a more convenient way to attend sessions with a professional when the time it's not the best for them to commute or are limited by region.
Common reasons are exhaustion after a long day at work or looking after children at home, or simply cannot travel to another city.
The Professionals
Want to centralize their operations by using the least amount of tools possible while providing a better service for their clients all in one go.
They also want to gain more exposure for their specific niches without going over budget.
A quick snapshot of the solution
1. A client-facing mobile app to seek nutritionists and book and attend sessions remotely
2. A nutritionist-facing web app to manage schedules, sessions, client information, payments and more
We uncovered a few more specific key pain points that we needed to account for
Insights based on 5 in-person interviews with active nutrition professionals:
The ghosting problem
Clients would often skip sessions for "personal reasons". Which, after analyzing the pattern from various clients' behaviour, it was discovered that most of these cases were related to the actual commitment to show up in person at the office. Excuses for cancellations or moving dates around at the last minute are a growing issue for professionals.
Technical issues & costs
Relying on multiple platforms to run their businesses involves a higher cost that impacts revenue (even more so for solo-practitioners), compromises client experience when in need of tech support, and increases the probabilities of human mistakes with client data.
Popularity of dieting & workout apps
New apps are impacting their growth. More and more people are going for the "convenient way" of achieving health goals by using these mobile apps instead. But, these apps are also impacting people's habits (for the worse) with no clear guidance on best practices. This results in what's commonly called in the industry a "bounce-back", which is a client going back to a not-ideal or unhealthy state where they started from.
Insights based on 7 in-person interviews with regular clients in the industry:
Lack of flexibility
Almost all services offered by professionals here are performed in-person at their office or clinic. This means commuting every single time. But, people have lives and things can take a turn when unexpected situations happen that require some degree of flexibility. Otherwise, this translates directly to cancellations or rescheduling, which is not convenient for either side.
Confusing processes
There are still a few places that offered remote services, but the process of booking and attending sessions is definitely not ideal. There's pretty much a different tool for each step of the process leaving clients confused and overwhelmed.
Self-commitment (and the lack of it)
Most of the new apps require self-commitment with manual tracking and data entry, but most people almost never build the habit and they do it for the first few days before they start to forget (or decline) to log their meals and activity to track their progress properly. This leads to poor or no results at all at the end of the day.
No personalized human interaction
These new platforms are meant to be "automated" tools that would not require the need of human assistance to use them. The problem is that the key information and best practices about how to do things the right way are missing (or are not clear enough) and require a lot of effort from the user to find out what they need, most of the time leading to app abandonment.
Lack of options fo specific use cases
A pattern we found was that these apps are targeting the general public and provide the basics to weight loss, and that's pretty much it. The professionals know that there are more use cases than weight loss such as sports nutrition or child nutrition, for instance, which are nowhere to be found in the new platforms.
What were the trends and the main players in the mobile sector
The following apps started to appear on more people's mobile devices trying to replace professional services. We took a closer look at a few of them to understand what they were offering.
Most of these apps were an alternative solution for people looking for convenience that ended up not giving them the results they wanted. And back in search for human services, they encountered again the same regional and in-person limitation since people didn't quite adopt the remote work approach yet (pre-COVID)
Hearing people's stories of trying to self-commit to these calorie-tracking or fitness apps and bouncing after a few weeks told us that there was a real need for truly remote services performed by real experts.
What we learned
After analyzing the current market, the new app trends, the pain points from the interviews, and personal experience from the product owner herself, we understood what the goals were and pinned them down.
Clients goal
To conveniently find and connect with professional nutritionists that fit their needs, from anywhere
Professionals goal
To centralize operations and provide the best service by leveraging modern communication technologies
Defined clients epic
As a client, I want to easily find trusted and experienced professionals on my mobile device and be able to connect with them seamlessly from anywhere and everywhere so that I can achieve my health goals with personalized, guided, and real-time consulting without being region-limited .
Defined professionals epic
As a professional, I want to take in clients online from all regions and be able to manage and track them in one single, intuitive platform so that I can expand my reach and make my client management process more efficient for higher satisfaction and faster results.
The principles we defined for this project
Make it as convenient as possible
People prioritize convenience in this scenario. So build a mobile platform where users can search and sort professionals by specialization and experience to easily book and attend 1:1 online sessions that'll help them make progress on their health goals from the palm of their hands
Latest comms tech at the core
Provide communication tools such as video conferencing, chat, and progress tracking to keep a real-time, more personalized experience that'll benefit both ends equally.
All-in-one place
Build intuitive and frustration-free features for professionals such as session management and history, scheduling, payment processing and client data tracking for better management of their overall business needs
Narrowing down the solutions for the client-facing side
With all the initial requirements mapped out, we started exploring how this platform would look like for users.
For clients, we broke down the main experience into four (4) stages:
1. Onboarding
Gathering of essential information for a personalized home screen. Form-like interaction.
2. Search and Filtering
Ability to see recommendations based on data provided and search functionality by experience and specialty.
3. Booking and pre-session
Ability to see the professional's information, service offerings, and availability, and book sessions and process payments. Also get notifications and updates about upcoming sessions.
4. Sessions
Direct communication with the professional through one of the three channels available: video, voice, and chat.
Samples of some of the wireframes we worked on
Giving shape to the professional-facing side
For the professionals, we identified five (5) key areas that'd make their life easier:
1. Quick overview of operations
Simple intuitive dashboard displaying upcoming sessions and the ones ready to jump in.
2. Bookings and client management
See who booked, when, and why. View client information beforehand to be prepared for the live sessions.
3. Services and transactions management
Allow users to create their services with what's included and at what price. Make it effortless to take payments during bookings.
4. Profile creation and maintenance
Users can create and edit their profiles from the same dashboard including managing and moderating reviews.
5. Live sessions
Intuitive interface during live sessions where the professional can see client information at all times and take notes.
Samples of some of the wireframes we worked on
The results in details
We ended up with a solution that assisted both user groups needs in a simple yet convenient all-in-one platform/marketplace.
Clients would enter key information while creating an account that would create a personalized homepage where tailored recommendations become the main highlight of the experience to make it easier to find the right expert.
StayWell mobile onboarding
Mobile interactions prototype
Professionals would have access to a complete dashboard that would become the only place they'll need to be on a daily basis. With all essential information about their operations at a glance, they'd love to wake up on a Monday and start working right away without administrative headaches.
StayWell web app dashboard
Desktop interaction prototype
Some setbacks along the way
The platform was heading in the right direction and we (and prospects) were very happy with the current results but, unfortunately, this project couldn't be developed and shipped as expected due to a financial crisis in Argentina. It was decided to put the project on stand-by until further notice, when the investment could be more stable and predictable.
We see potential with this platform based on feedback from a few prospects from both ends which confirms the benefits we can bring to them, so we hope this project can be resurrected in the future and tested thoroughly so it can be shipped to the people who really need this.
If you're curious about the financial crisis, you can read about it here and here.
