We worked with global pharmaceutical giant GSK to develop MyQuit – an app to support people on their journey to quitting smoking. Initially, we came on board to manage the project, but our role soon grew to cover strategy, UX, design and analytics.

What does it take to quit?

We knew that if we were going to build an effective tool, we’d need a deep understanding of our audience. So we started with user research, building personas, and getting to grips with their behaviours and needs.

From this research came the insight behind one of our key UX decisions: quitting smoking is a big challenge in itself, so we needed to avoid adding to the burden. With this in mind, we framed the app around a large single button to log cravings and created widgets for instant access from mobile homescreens.

Everything you need, every step of the way

We built in a range of functionality to support users across desktop, mobile and Apple Watch. This included logging the time, place and intensity of cravings, as well as the usage and impact of products like patches and lozenges. Then we made all the data available at a glance, via a personalised dashboard and Google Maps visualisation. Now users could form a better picture of their habits and identify opportunities to make positive lifestyle changes.

Using insights from this data, we were able to deliver the right message at the right time to help people resist cravings and encourage them following slip ups. We also gamified the experience with badges to reward them at major milestones and balanced this with informative messaging about the health benefits of their progress.

We built a series of articles and videos into the app to support users throughout the journey, while the option to personalise the experience with a family photo added even more motivation.