Timeline

2024 Q1 - Q2

Team

PM, UR, 3 Engineers, Director of Recovery

Role

Product Designer

Designing for Recovery: Getting Users Off Pornography

CovenantEyes embarked on a mission to help individuals overcome pornography addiction by offering a free, accessible entry point into recovery. As the lead Product Designer, I was responsible for crafting the free user experience for the Victory App—a solution designed to build clarity, commitment, and connection for users early in their recovery journey. This case study details the research, design process, and measurable impact of the project, culminating in a feature known as “Commit and Reflect.”

Challenge: CovenantEyes recognized that many potential users were hesitant to invest in or disclose their struggles with pornography addiction at the outset.

Objective: Develop a free, engaging solution that empowers users to learn about their addiction, fosters a sense of control, and guides them toward recovery.

My Role: As the Product Designer, I led  ideation, prototyping, and usability testing. I collaborated closely with UXR, PMs, engineers, the Director of Recovery and Certified Sex Addiction Therapists to ensure that our design not only addressed company’s strategic goals but also aligned with the user needs.

Victory App Before Commit and Reflect

The Three Pillars of Recovery: Clarity, Commitment, and Connection

The journey began with extensive user research. A year-long study revealed three key aspects of the recovery path:

  1. Clarity: Understanding one’s addiction and triggers
  2. Commitment: Building a resolve to change behavior
  3. Connection: Fostering support through community engagement

Armed with this knowledge, the team set out to create an app that would support users through each of these crucial stages.

Learning from the Best: Competitive Analysis

Benchmarking: I analyzed successful apps like Duolingo, Headspace, and Calm to identify patterns in habit formation and user engagement. This analysis highlighted features such as progress bars, streaks, journaling, and daily check-ins.

Prioritizing Features: Impact vs. Feasibility

Using an impact vs. feasibility matrix, I organized potential features. This helped the team focus on high-impact options that aligned with our recovery pillars.

Prototyping and Iteration

Early Concepts:
I developed initial mockups featuring a redesigned progress bar, “Take The Pledge,” “Power Ups,” and improved suggested readings.

Collaboration:
Working with a fellow designer, we merged two concepts—“Check Ins” and “Self-Reflection”—to create the innovative “Daily Pledge” (later refined as “Commit and Reflect”).

User Testing:
We validated our prototypes with 10 advanced recovery users, confirming the importance of emotional check-ins. Feedback led to iterations that refined our approach and simplified user flows.

Designing for Empowerment

My goal was to create a homepage that made users feel:

  • In control
  • Hopeful
  • Not alone

To achieve this, I proposed several new features:

  1. A redesigned progress bar
  2. A "Take The Pledge" feature
  3. "Power Ups" for daily activities
  4. Redesigned suggested readings

Early mock ups on potential features

Collaboration Leads to Innovation: The Birth of "Daily Commitment"

Through close collaboration with another designer, we merged two concepts - the "Check Ins" and a "Self-Reflection" - into a single, powerful feature. This became the cornerstone of our new design. And so we bagan to pursue alignment with the different teams.

Early concept flow of "Daily Pledge" - later renamed "Commit and Reflect"

Overcoming Challenges: Aligning Multiple Teams

One of our biggest hurdles was aligning the visions of marketing, product, and research teams. Through collaboration and a deep understanding of the company strategy, we established that retaining new users was the primary goal, benefiting both users and the company. Gaining this alignment allowed us to move forward to test several feature ideas.

Validating Our Ideas: User Research

We conducted interviews with 10 advanced recovery users, presenting prototypes of our two main concepts: Power Ups and Daily Pledges. Key findings included:

  • The importance of community and connection
  • Positive reception to the emotions check-in flow
  • The need to refine and re-test the Power Ups feature
  • Strong validation for the Pledges concept

At the end of the interviews, it was abundantly clear that the concept for Pledges was the strongest candidate for development.

Refining the Approach: Expert Input and User Testing

Having defined the feature and the common goal. We set out to work with addiction experts that helped us refined our language and approach. We simplified commitment reasons to reduce decision paralysis and prevent from misuse, and lastly rename the feature and change copy to avoid the use of heavy-meaning words like Pledge, and so "Commit and Reflect" was born.

The Final Product: "Commit and Reflect"

After multiple iterations and rounds of usability testing, we launched the "Commit and Reflect" feature. This daily commitment and self-reflection tool was designed to:

  1. Foster a sense of community
  2. Encourage daily reflection
  3. Build clarity around emotions
  4. Strengthen users' resolve to abstain from pornography

Measuring Success: Impressive Early Results

Within the first six months of launch:

  • Over 15,000 users had made a commitment
  • The adoption rate reached 26.47%
  • 92% of users reported increased motivation to abstain from viewing pornography
results from Commit and Reflect featureResults from a survey on Daily Commitment experience

Looking Ahead: Continuous Improvement

Building on the success of "Commit and Reflect," we're now working on the next iteration, which will include:

- A calendar view of streaks
- An improved "Feelings" questionnaire
- Dynamic messaging to reduce monotony
- Various bug fixes

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Driving Better Behaviors and Increasing Adoption Rate