UX Research

Input

• Product: Meridian Health — a B2B2C chronic disease management platform for employer-sponsored wellness programs
• Research goal: Understand why enrolled employees stop logging symptoms and medication adherence after the first two weeks
• Participants: 8 employees at mid-size companies (500–2,000 headcount) diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes or hypertension, enrolled 30–90 days ago
• Sprint context: Sprint 7 kickoff — team is debating whether to build smart reminders, simplify the daily check-in flow, or add social accountability features

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Output (abbreviated)

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UX Research Chain — Meridian Health: Engagement Drop-Off

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Step 1 — /interview-plan

Research Objectives

#	Objective	Success Signal
1	Understand the emotional and situational triggers that cause logging to lapse	Participants describe specific moments, not generalities
2	Identify competing behaviors and tools already in use	Named alternatives surface (Apple Health, paper, nothing)
3	Stress-test team assumptions about reminders and social features	At least one assumption is invalidated

Participant Screener Criteria

• Enrolled in Meridian via employer ≥ 30 days ago
• Logged at least 5 sessions in first 2 weeks, fewer than 3 in the past 2 weeks
• Manages Type 2 diabetes or hypertension (self-reported)
• Not a clinical trial participant or in a high-touch coaching tier

Session Structure (50 min each)

Phase	Duration	Focus
Warm-up	5 min	Work context, daily health routines
Behavior history	15 min	Walk me through your last week of managing your condition
Tool and habit exploration	15 min	What they actually use, why
Lapse moments	10 min	Specific incident reconstruction
Reaction to concepts (optional)	5 min	Only if time allows — no feature pitching

Capture Template (per session)

• Opening mental model: What managing their condition feels like day-to-day
• Trigger moment: When they last logged vs. when they stopped
• Competing behavior: What they did instead
• Language: Exact words used to describe the burden or friction
• Surprise: One thing that didn't fit expectations

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Step 2 — /interview-script

Mom Test-grounded — no leading questions, no feature mentions

Opening (Warm-up)

"Tell me about your typical Tuesday — from when you wake up to when you're at your desk."

"Where does managing your health fit in that picture, if at all?"

Core Question Bank

Behavior history

• "Walk me through the last time you actually checked in on your health — what were you doing right before that?"
• "What does a day look like when managing your condition feels manageable?"
• "What does a day look like when it completely falls off your radar?"

Tool exploration

• "What do you currently use to keep track of anything health-related — even informally?"
• "How did you end up using that?"
• (If Meridian comes up): "Tell me about the last time you opened it. What happened?"

Lapse reconstruction (highest signal section)

• "Think back to the last time you meant to log something and didn't. Can you take me there?"
• "What was going on for you that day?"
• "What did you do instead — even if it was nothing?"
• "Has that happened more than once? What tends to be going on when it does?"

Probes for depth

• "What did that feel like?"
• "How often does that happen?"
• "What would have had to be different for you to have logged that day?"

What NOT to ask

• ❌ "Would a reminder help you log more?" (leading — validates the team's assumption)
• ❌ "What features would you want?" (solicits opinions, not behavior)
• ❌ "Do you find the app hard to use?" (yes/no, no signal)

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Step 3 — /interview-synthesis

Based on 8 sessions conducted. Notes cleaned and reviewed with team.

Jobs-to-Be-Done Map

JTBD	Functional	Emotional	Social
Primary	Track condition without it becoming a second job	Feel in control, not surveilled	Not be seen as "the sick person" at work
Secondary	Understand if what I'm doing is working	Get confirmation I'm not failing	Have something to show the doctor

Pain Point Clusters

1. The Overhead Tax

"It's like clocking in for a job I didn't apply for." — Participant 4

Logging feels like administrative work, not self-care. Every required field that isn't immediately meaningful adds to abandonment probability. Participants with the highest early engagement had self-imposed minimalist routines — they logged one thing, not five.

2. Feedback Silence

"I put the numbers in and… nothing. I don't know if that's good or bad." — Participant 7

Seven of eight participants couldn't recall ever receiving a meaningful response to their data. The app acknowledges input but doesn't interpret it. Participants who track vitals elsewhere (Apple Health, paper) do so because those tools give immediate visual feedback.

3. Shame Cascades

"Once I missed a few days, it felt like too much to catch up on. So I just stopped." — Participant 2

Missing one or two days created a perceived debt. Participants described the gap as a visible accusation. Re-engagement felt more effortful than starting fresh — but there's no "fresh start" mechanism.

4. Context Collapse Logging requires a calm, private moment. Participants who lapsed most quickly had open-plan offices or caregiving responsibilities at home. The friction isn't primarily UI — it's situational.

Assumption Validation

Team Assumption	Validated?	Evidence
Users forget to log — reminders would help	❌ Invalidated	6/8 said they remember and choose not to; reminders would feel nagging
The check-in flow is too long	✅ Partially confirmed	Flow length matters, but only after the feedback silence problem; length alone didn't cause lapses
Social accountability would increase retention	⚠️ Risky	5/8 actively did not want health visibility at work; 2/8 were open to it with close contacts only
Users don't understand the product's value	✅ Confirmed	No participant could articulate what Meridian does with their data or how it helps them

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Step 4 — /research-synthesize

Cross-Source Theme Map

Theme	Interview Signal	Behavioral Data Signal	Implication
Feedback silence	7/8 participants	Session drop-off peaks at Day 10 (no trend insight surfaces until Day 14+)	Ship micro-feedback loops before any other engagement feature
Shame cascade / gap anxiety	6/8 participants	Re-engagement rate after 7-day lapse: 4%	Build forgiveness mechanics — streak resets, "resume here" flows
Overhead tax	8/8 participants	Median session length 3.1 min; completion rate drops 60% past field 4	Reduce mandatory fields to 2; make extras opt-in
Context collapse	5/8 participants	68% of sessions initiated between 7–9am; near-zero midday	Explore passive capture (wearable sync) before prompting manual logging

Recommended Backlog Connections

Immediate (this sprint)

• Story: As a user who logged yesterday, I want to see a simple trend ("your BP is stable this week") so that I know my data is doing something
• Story: As a user returning after a gap, I want to resume without seeing how many days I missed so that re-entry doesn't feel like failure

Next sprint

• Spike: Evaluate wearable data ingestion (Garmin, Apple Health) to reduce manual entry dependency
• Story: Reduce required daily check-in fields from 6 to 2; surface optional fields progressively

Backlog / deprioritized

• Smart reminders — reframe as "context