The Chorus Experience

Overview

It’s easier to break a promise to yourself than it is to break a promise to someone else. Chorus was an app that used small group accountability to keep people committed to healthy goals. Instead of relying on programs or workouts, Chorus brought small teams together to support each other in healthy habits. Chorus provided ways to create a team, say what you want to achieve for the week, see what others are doing, and support each other in meaningful ways. I was Product and UX Lead at Chorus. I worked to bring structure and definition to an ambiguous product concept and collaborated with designers, engineers, and founders to translate that structure into actionable product plans and UX guidelines.

 

Core experience

The home screen helps users answer two questions: "Did I do my part?" and "How are we doing as a team?"

The home screen helps users answer two questions: "Did I do my part?" and "How are we doing as a team?"

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A planning view made it easy to commit to specific activities during the week and get others involved in that.

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There were ways to talk to your team, keep up on progress, and be proactive about helping or motivating others.

 

4-PART PRODUCT FRAMEWORK

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Many of the core features on Chorus were based on a simple 4-part product framework I developed and that we used extensively to help us prioritize work. Before anything, teams needed a place to go. Our initial efforts were focused on baseline features that gave teams ways to gather and talk to each other. Once we gave people a place to go, teams needed something to do. 24-Hour Challenges were one example of how we motivated teams to do things together. Once teams found common ground, they needed ways to actively participate with each other. Social accountability is the direct result of meaningful relationships around a common goal, so proactive participation was an essential element of our product strategy. Finally, we wanted to give teams specific ways to grow or improve, so the cycle could start over.

 

User Archetypes

Based on research and early prototype insights, I created three user archetypes that helped the team focus our efforts. For our beta and launch, we focused on building an experience for "varsity" teams who already had a fitness habit. This let us simplify and focus development on social accountability and collective action rather than workout design.

 

Early concept maps

From the very beginning, the vision for Chorus included building tools for coaches, as well as teams and individual users. Because the problems could be approached from multiple angles, we needed a good way to visualize how all our ideas fit together and where they overlapped and connected. I frequently created concept maps that helped us understand user flows, and gave us something concrete to point to, talk about, so that we were on the same page.