Creating a digital community
for meditators
The TM app is now live to TM meditators - take a look here or read the Case study by Allofus
TM
Community
The Project
The Transcendental Meditation (TM) organization has been around since the 1950s and needed to update their digital presence. They reached out to us to help them create a digital offering that would compete with the new digital meditation apps and engage a younger audience.
What began as a 12-week project developed into over a year-long engagement. I had the opportunity to be part of the core team of multiple phases of developing TM's digital proposition.
The Objective
We know that meditators are dropping off after learning the technique and not attending further courses, which puts a cap on the revenue that TM can achieve and diminishes their community.
Our challenge is to maintain the engagement of new and existing meditators in their meditation practice and lead them in further learning and the TM community.
Phase 1: Immersion
We immersed ourselves in TM, learning the technique ourselves, and reviewing the full service from within.
We conducted qualitative interviews to understand the key pain points and opportunities from both the meditator and teacher perspectives.
As a team, we reviewed the Health and wellness landscape to discern the current behaviors and trends.
Once we had a better understanding we mapped the TM service end to end with meditator and teacher pain points in order to find the key opportunities to elevate the service for all actors.
We aligned the team on the key areas of opportunity in a co-creation workshop.
Phase 2: The Core experience
To define an MVP for TM we need to understand the core experience that satisfies the most immediate meditators and business needs to then scale it to the wider customer experience. We used the HMW framework to define and reframe our area of focus. The key design challenges to face first:
How might we help them be more regular in their practice?
The meditator's core problem was maintaining their meditation regularity.
How might we maintain that human connection with TM?
The human connection with a teacher was the most valued aspect of the course.
How might we better guide meditators to achieve higher levels of meditation?
We identified that meditators described TM as a journey, and sometimes you can't see your progress or where you are going.
Slideshow with high overview journey and the steps to identify the MVP
Phase 3: The MVP
The Vision: TM “Collective” is an app that taps into the collective experience of the TM teacher and meditator community to guide and support you on your journey.
Once the vision was agreed we had to prioritize what to build first. Based on the pain points we had identified in the immersion phase we prioritized:
Meditation Timer:
Help meditators stay connected on a daily basis.
Event calendar:
Allow meditators to stay in touch with the community.
Library:
Allows meditators to continue their journey by giving them access to further knowledge and courses.
Phase 4: Make, test & learn
We created numerous prototypes and tested with TM meditators, existing, and new to understand their desirability and usability. As part of the core team, I ran ideation sessions, user testing, implemented changes, and facilitated ongoing workshops with the client.
The App is now live!
Existing TM meditators can now download the app by invitation only and soon will be available for new meditators. Take a look.
This is a project I'm really proud of and will always carry in my heart as one of the most challenging and fulfilling professional experiences. I was lucky enough that I got to work with an incredibly talented designer who is also my best friend, Lucy Sharp. Without her, TM Community wouldn’t have been possible.
