Exhale
The Exhale app is by and for Black and Indigenous women of color and was meant to deliver content that speaks to and meets their particular needs for self-care, meditation and mindfulness.
CHALLENGE
SOLUTION
A simple and beautiful experience with a “breathing orb” on entry and the ability to easily find what users need – guided meditation, breathwork, or ambient sound – given the time they have.
RESULTS
With its gorgeous design and high-quality content, this five-star app was flagged by the App Store for a feature within days of publishing.
Katara McCarty is an activist and serial social entrepreneur who wanted to create the first meditation and mindfulness app specifically for Black and Indigenous women, with design, imagery and content created by BIWOC and for their particular needs.
Katara had built the app initially with a white label, no-code solution that helped her get to market quickly and validate her idea. But the user experience just wasn’t at the level of quality Katara wanted to deliver, so we partnered to make that upgrade happen.
We wanted to get rid of any barrier between the user and mindfulness, so we made it happen immediately and every time. There’s no need for users to commit to listening to a meditation or to tap even once, anywhere, to enter a mindful state. On every open, they are welcomed by name, and a glowing orb expands and contracts with the words “inhale” and “exhale.” Users can stay and breathe (a timer appears in this case) or enter the app after one mindful breath. Exhale's home page shows the user's face, glowing with light, and a count of days they’ve taken at least that one breath with Exhale.
IOSANDROIDDIRECT-TO-CONSUMERBIWOCFEMTECHHEALTHHEALTH & WELLBEINGLIFESTYLEAlso in an effort to remove barriers, we don’t require anything from the user before getting started – not even an account. Users can get the benefits of Exhale without handing over their email or creating a password; they are prompted to create an account only after they’ve gotten value from the product. Because secure passwords are a pain to create and remember, we got rid of those, too, with login by phone number and a texted code every time. This app is about creating and cultivating peace, so we were intentional about creating ease at every step.
We wanted to make finding the right meditation easy, getting rid of the need to manually search, filter, and decide. Once users enter, they are asked, “What do you need?” with three options: Guided Journey, Breath or Sound. Once they respond, they’re asked how much time they have. Based on their answers, a meditation is suggested. They can begin that meditation or ask for another idea.
Exhale has other great features, like the ability to favorite and save meditations for offline listening, a centering “Thought of the Day”, and gentle mindfulness notifications. We worked with Exhale to position the subscriptions and payments ask so that it feels like a meaningful transaction, not sale-sy in the least.
For Katara, we built a web-based, custom content management system for her to add, edit and otherwise manage all of the content in the app. Besides uploading meditations, she also sets the order of delivery of her Thoughts of the Day, and she can create and time the delivery of “The Latest”, where she publishes time-sensitive information ongoing, like when she publishes a new podcast episode or announces a BIWOC wellness retreat.
Mobile App Category: Wellness, Meditation, BIWOC
Mobile App Platforms: iOS, Android, Tablet
Web App: Admin Portal and Content Management System
What we delivered
DESIGN
Designed easy-to-use, beautiful and calming user experience for meditation search and tracking in partnership with the client
Interface design utilizing provided brand strategy
Animation design to create a unique experience throughout the product
DEVELOPMENT
Agile development process with a focus on optimizing interface design and animation implementation
Team of two developers focusing on React Native for iOS and Android app development, and backend app development
Dedicated project manager and quality assurance (QA) specialists
Ongoing maintenance
BACKEND TECH STACK
Nest.js // framework
MongoDB (+ Mongoose) // mongoose - ODM
In App Purchase (Apple/Android) // payments
AWS s3 // storage
Swagger // API documentation
JWT, passport, argon2 // Auth
Twilio // 2FA
Mailchimp // marketing
CRON // scheduler
Mailgun // mailing
Sharp // media file compression
Eslint, Prettier // linter, code formatter
FRONTEND TECH STACK
Angular 13 // framework
NgRx // store
RxJs // stream processing
Angular Material, CDK, Ngx // UI components
Lodash // utility library
Moment & Moment timezone // date processing & manipulation
Cropper JS // picture processing
Quill // What you see is what you get editor
MOBILE TECH STACK
React Native
Typescript
React Query
React Native Skia // 2D Graphics Library (ORB animation)
React Native Reanimated
Appcenter
React-native-firebase
React Navigation V6
React Native IAP // in app purchases
React-native-track-player // play audio tracks
CORE FEATURES
Breathing orb and timer
Simple questions that lead to suggested meditations
Dynamic “Thought of the Day” with notifications
User profile
Web-based CMS to manage Thoughts of the Day, The Latest content, and Meditations
Menu of meditations categorized by type. Search bar and filter options for time and type.
Save and download meditations for offline listening
Meditation listening with unique full-circle progress tracking bar
Manage notifications for Thought of the Day, meditation reminders, and The Latest
