Shimmer
Personalizing ADHD coaching
through assessments
ROLE
Lead Product Designer
SCOPE
UX / UI Design
User Research
TIMEFRAME
2024
Shimmer is a platform that matches working professionals diagnosed with ADHD with ADHD coaches to make lasting behavioral changes in their professional and personal lives.
When I joined in January 2024, the MVP on Mobile and Web existed, but there was room to personalize the coaching experience further.
What follows is a walkthrough of how the MVP versions of the Wheel of Life Assessment feature was built, including research, explorations, and launched designs.
FEATURE OVERVIEW - ASSESSMENT
Your ADHD made intuitive
It takes courage to get an ADHD diagnosis, but what matters is what a person does next with that information.
Because many of the areas that ADHD affects are "invisible" - such as motivation, emotion, communication, and thinking - it is hard to make sense of what to do about our ADHD.
The Wheel of Life assessment is our approach to helping ADHD'ers understand what areas of their life are impacted by ADHD, and what they can work on with a coach to thrive.
Design is in the Details
In designing the Assessment, I mapped out variables that would affect the user experience and then made sure while designing, choices were made following the three following criteria:
- 🔬 Science-Informed:
One major constraint for the Assessment feature is making use of the clinical research on how ADHD impacts life areas, conducted by Dr. Russell A Barkley. There was a constant tension between using scientifically validated constructs vs. translating them into an intuitive user experience. - 📊 Intuitive Abstraction:
Most graphs are limited to 1-2 dimensions of information. For this feature, we needed to design an interactive graph that functioned well on both Mobile and Web, and communicated three unique dimensions: Importance, Impairment, and Focus Areas. - 🧠 Neurodivergent-Friendly:
ADHD brains are more prone to distraction, sensitive to friction in tasks, and experience overwhelm more easily. To make the experience neurodivergent-friendly, we had to double down on well-known design patterns to minimize confusion and promote clarity.
The Assessment
"This tool fills a huge void in current psychological assessment practices — finally, we have a psychometrically sound, norm-referenced instrument to measure functional impairment in adults. The Barkley Functional Impairment Scale (BFIS) is conceptually sound, empirically derived, ecologically valid, highly reliable, and clinically useful."
Lawrence Lewandowski, PhD
Department of Psychology, Syracuse University
Axis Toggle
Being able to toggle between Importance (blue) and Impairment (red) allows ADHD'ers to collaborate with their Shimmer coaches to understand what areas need the most attention in their lives.
Guided Questions
Introducing new ADHD science within an assessment is no small feat for folks who need more support sustaining attention. We focused on a guided workflow with simple language and intuitive categories.
Onboarding
How do we make trust a defining element of our user's first impression? We focused on clear visual snapshots of the Wheel of Life assessment: easy to start with, and incredibly rewarding to explore more deeply with a Shimmer coach.
COACH TRAINING
Modern Tools for Modern Coaching
Many clients initially feel overwhelmed when first beginning coaching, perceiving every aspect of their lives as requiring immediate attention.
The Wheel of Life Assessment enables coaches to pinpoint critical areas for client focus, which cuts through the chaos and provides clarity and a meaningful starting point for coaching.
After launching the assessment, the team crafted a comprehensive guide to train our 30+ ADHD coaches on how to further elevate the quality of support offered to our 2000+ members.
early feedback
Progress & priorities, personalized.
🪄 Coach perspective
🙋🏻♂️ Client perspective
Norman really gets what our ADHD members need. He’s great at pulling in fresh insights from numerous disciplines, listens carefully, and isn’t shy about asking for or giving feedback - especially important when working closely with the two co-founders.
Chris Wang - CEO - Shimmer
IMPACT
Small Steps,
Giant Leaps
4.8
Stars in App store
83%
Can better manage ADHD symptoms
in 6 weeks
25,000+
Coaching sessions
Research
Presented at The British Psychological Society's Division of Coaching Psychology Conference 2024
UP NEXT
Shimmer
Deshaming ADHD through shared community perspectives
UX / UI DESIGN | RESEARCH
I joined Shimmer as a Lead Designer and led the Community Polls design, which helps clients connect with one another beyond their 1:1 connection with coaches so that they can feel less alone and feel a sense of belonging as a community overcoming similar challenges. I worked closely with the CEO and CTO to design and launch the feature, now used daily by our 2000+ paying coaching clients.
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