In this week’s episode, we learn about Meg Dryer, the General Manager of the Consumer Business for Evidation, a healthtech app offering health tracking, reward features, and access to research institutions. Meg is an individual who uniquely blends engineering and design, having started her journey in engineering before pursuing art and design. This shift towards experience design has lasted throughout her career, and you’ll hear how profoundly it has impacted her work.
In this week’s episode, we learn about Meg Dryer, the General Manager of the Consumer Business for Evidation, a healthtech app offering health tracking, reward features, and access to research institutions. Meg is an individual who uniquely blends engineering and design, having started her journey in engineering before pursuing art and design. This shift towards experience design has lasted throughout her career, and you’ll hear how profoundly it has impacted her work.
Evidation leverages health data from wearables and smartphones to impact healthcare decisions, setting the stage for objective, data-informed discussions between patients and doctors. With Data Privacy Day on the horizon (January 28th!), Meg emphasizes the importance of data transparency in crafting a delightful consumer-grade healthcare experience.
Meg offers valuable insights throughout the conversation. She advocates how she and her team have found success in designing for the 'off moments', allowing their users to disengage when they need to and re-engage easily on their own terms. She also emphasizes the importance of allowing users to switch their focus, whether it's from activity level to sleep patterns. These strategies maintain long-term engagement.
Meg also shares advice for listeners who aim to improve their own practices. Intensive user involvement, maintaining a beginner's mindset, and practicing patience forms the crux of successful design. Meg insists on going beyond the present app scope and envisioning the future experience based on deep qualitative research, ensuring that the product is tailored to meet both the obvious and unspoken needs of the users.
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Guest Bio
Meg Dryer is the General Manager of Consumer at Evidation, where she is responsible for Evidation's presence in the market. Prior to Evidation, Meg was VP of Consumer Experience at Cambia Health Solutions. Before moving into healthcare, Meg led teams at Nike where she worked on projects such as the Rio Olympics and at IDEO, where she did venture and business design. Her work is deeply human-centric: she cares deeply about understanding customer needs and crafting solutions and stories to meet these needs. Meg has a BS in Interaction Design from Stanford University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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Guest Quote
"If you are trying to force someone in your app or your experience to maintain that high level of engagement, they drop off. But if you craft an experience designed for the off moments, where it's okay for it to take a back seat for a while, people can re-engage when they're ready. You keep that longitudinal engagement over time.” – Meg Dryer
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Time Stamps
*(01:22) Meg's Background
*(05:40) What is Evidation?
*(08:04) Capturing the data from your lived experience
*(11:46) The sensitivity of health data
*(13:27) Solving the tension between data privacy and design
*(18:26) Evidation's superpower
*(20:17) Redesigning the healthcare experience
*(22:47) Lessons for others looking to redesign their app
*(26:12) How to maintain user engagement all year long
*(31:03) Rapid Fire Questions
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Links
Meg Dryer: [00:00:00] In doing a lot of qualitative research, we started to notice this pattern which is high engagement falling off. And if you are trying to force someone in your app or your experience to maintain that high level, they drop off. If you craft an experience designed for the off moments where It's okay for it to take a backseat for a while.
Then they'll kind of come back on their own. And so purposefully designing for off moments so that people can re engage when they're ready. You keep that longitudinal engagement over time.
Voiceover: Welcome to Masters of Max, a mobile app experience podcast. Please welcome your host, Tom Buda, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at Airship.
Tom Butta: Welcome to another episode of Masters of Max. Today, I have the extreme pleasure of speaking with Meg [00:01:00] Dreyer. Meg is the general manager of the consumer business for Evidation. Welcome to the show.
Meg Dryer: Thanks, Tom. Thanks for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.
Tom Butta: We've had a, um, another guest recently from Sam's Club who has a similar background as yours in terms of experience design.
Perhaps you can tell us a little bit about your background and how you became interested in experience design.
Meg Dryer: Yeah, absolutely. So it's interesting. It starts back in my undergrad days where I decided I wanted to pursue engineering as a major. And I went through all the prerequisites, I was in chemistry, I was in physics, I was in heavy mathematics, all this kind of thing, and by the time I got to like My junior year, I remember sitting in a class called Introduction to Stochastic Processes.
And to this day, I can't even tell you what a stochastic process y is. I actually stood up and walked out of the class. And I walked out of the class because I was like, I can't do this anymore. This isn't me. This isn't [00:02:00] who I want to be. This isn't my passion. And I remember sitting down with a friend one day and he said, well, you know, Meg, you can design your own major here.
And I said, you can? And he said, yeah, why don't you just pull together whatever you're interested in and make it your own major? And so I was able actually at the time to take all the background I had in computer science and engineering and physics and math and all of that and do what I was really passionate about, which was art and design.
So then I took all these classes in human computer interaction. I, you know, went really deep in psychology. I took art classes. I took product design classes where we actually made physical products in a shop. I spent days on the lathe turning, you know, vases and wood and all kinds of interesting things.
I casted, I welded, I did all this really tangible stuff and just found that like My heart was full at that time. And that's [00:03:00] how I really became interested in interaction and experience design was that merger of those two things, this sort of like very technical side of engineering and this more artistic and free side of art and design.
And I have really applied that throughout my career. You know, I started off my career in consumer goods, um, working on kids shoes, working on electronics, working on, you know, a wide variety of. I did a lot of stuff at IDEO, I did everything from museums to new beverage lines, but when I was at Nike, I reflected a lot on my experience at IDEO and how I'd been drawn to projects in mostly healthcare and education.
Those two sectors just have, you know, two things I think that are really interesting. One is universal experience. We all have experience in healthcare and education in some way. And two is, the social impact those sectors are able to have. And unlike a lot of other sectors in the world that get a lot of design attention, [00:04:00] retail being one of them, they just are really neglected in terms of design.
And, you know, more and more consumers are getting frustrated and fed up. with the level of difficulty we experience in healthcare. And so when I was looking to leave Nike, I really focused my search on healthcare and have landed there and have spent, you know, the last number of years of my career in that space.
Tom Butta: Well, I think we're all grateful that you have done that because I'm confident most of the listeners we have here on the podcast have had similar experiences as yours, which is, you know, the healthcare system is one of the last systems that actually understands that user experience and how design can make a big difference, especially in a, in a mobile, you know, world.
Um, apologies to all those stotastic, uh, process, uh, Stochastic process, yeah. Stotastic, sorry, stotastic process aficionados. But I think corpus callosum describes a [00:05:00] little bit of who you are. Apparently the corpus callosum is, is a part of the membrane of the brain that goes across both hemispheres.
Meg Dryer: Yeah, I feel like the world needs more of those people right now.
Like just more bridges between, you know, I think that's a theme we see is like more bridges between the technical and the, you know, design and more bridges between like, you know, marketing and what's actually getting built. I think that's just a really important theme of where industries are going right now.
And especially in healthcare, like bridges is a big theme of healthcare. And a lot of what I do kind of on a day to day is trying to help build those connections and build those bridges. That's a really
Tom Butta: great way to think about it. So tell us a little bit more about
Meg Dryer: evidation. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Tom, I'm going to ask you a question.
How much time do you think on average you got with any doctor that you saw in this last year?
Tom Butta: Uh, on average, my visits are at the most 20 minutes. Yeah. Um, so I'd say, you know, sort of 15 to 20 minutes. Yeah,
Meg Dryer: I think you're [00:06:00] right. I think that's the universal experience is we get 10 to 20 minutes with a provider.
it's not much time to make really serious decisions. So in those 10 or 15 minutes, let's say at best 20, I'm trying to figure out, do I need an MRI? Or my doctor and I are trying to figure that out together.
Should I change my diet? How do I alleviate my pain? What do I do about my heart palpitations? And that's not a lot of time to actually make those decisions. And so that's what evidation was born out of, was the idea that 99. 9 percent of our health experiences live outside of the clinic walls. And how do we capture that lived experience, that data, those signals?
The everything that's happening, you know, whether you're getting flushed, whether you're having heart palpitations, whether your sleep is terrible, et cetera. How do we leverage that to inform the people and the institutions that are making decisions with [00:07:00] us about our health? So that's public health groups, providers.
Biopharma, researchers, anyone who's involved in that. And so that's really what Evidation is trying to do is helping you capture the data from wearables and smartphones and then giving you surveys and the ability to participate in you sharing what your lived experience is.
Tom Butta: I love that term, capturing the data from your lived experience.
And when you do go into have these, you know, 10 to 20 minute conversations with, with your doctor, you you. They're taking notes, which is, I don't ever remember spending so much time with a doctor who was in front of their laptop, uh, taking notes, but they're taking notes on things that you tell them.
They're trying to draw some inferences and patterns. They basically don't have the information that they need to make a decision because you're communicating in words. As opposed to data. And so, is that where Evidation tracks and captures and then tracks and reports on that lived [00:08:00] experience of, call it healthcare data.
Is that, is that it? And maybe tell
us
Meg Dryer: a bit more about it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, well, let me tell you a story. I mean, this is really personal for me because I battled chronic fatigue for probably 10 years, ever since my second child was born. And I saw over those 10 years. probably a dozen physicians.
And I would go in and I would talk about my symptoms using words with no data. And what I got told time and time again was, well, you're a working mom and being a working mom is exhausting, which is true. Being a working mom is exhausting, but I was taking 2 3 hour naps every day of the weekend just to recover from my work week, and that didn't feel normal.
And I was sleeping 9 10 hours a night, and that didn't feel normal. But I got told time and again, you're a working mom, you're a working mom, you're, you're stressed, maybe you should. You know, do a little more yoga. Maybe you should meditate. Things [00:09:00] that were all well intentioned. I don't think any of these doctors meant ill.
Um, but when I started at Evidation, I got a ring that monitors my sleep at night. And through a combination of that data and, you know, looking at patterns through that app and my Evidation app, I was able to see that I wasn't actually getting any restorative deep sleep at night. at all. And I'm talking like seven minutes.
And deep sleep is that restorative sleep that, you know, refreshes your brain. It like flushes out all the toxins. It's like super critical for sleep. And armed with that data, I went in and had a conversation with my physician that said, I know you think I'm exhausted because I'm a working mom, but here, check this out.
I have months now of data that say I'm actually not getting any deep restorative sleep. So we need to get to the bottom of this problem. And she was like, Oh my goodness, you're right. Like let's put you in a sleep study. And together we were able, within a matter of weeks. [00:10:00] So it's been 10 years, and within a matter of weeks, I was able to uncover that a medication that I was on was causing something called Breastless Leg Syndrome, which was causing my brain to fire all night.
So I wasn't getting any of that deep restless sleep or deep restorative sleep. So I went off the medication, and literally, again, within a matter of days. All of a sudden, I've gone from seven minutes of deep sleep to an hour and a half of deep sleep, which is about what a, what person should have. And, you know, that shows the power of like showing up with that lived experience can change the conversation because of exactly what you said.
We've shifted from here's my self reported experience in words to here's my lived experience with supporting data. And that does two things. One, it enables Me and my provider to have a broader, more inclusive conversation about what's really going on. And it also shifts the power dynamics, and this is something I think that's an interesting trend in healthcare, which is you're seeing more and more kind [00:11:00] of consumer demand for, I'd say, consumerism of healthcare.
Make it easier, make it more like other apps, make that experience simpler. But we're also, you know, when we come to our physicians, we're in this vulnerable state, we're confused about what information they need and we're confused about what questions they're asking and what we should be asking. And so when you have an objective set of data, all of a sudden it completely shifts the conversation and it completely shifts and it completely kind of levels the playing field in terms of the power dynamics that exist in that relationship.
Tom Butta: Interesting. So because the data is the data and it's objective, then It actually equalizes everything, doesn't it?
Meg Dryer: It does. Yeah. Yeah, it really does. And I think, you know, healthcare data is really sensitive. And so that's one thing that I'm really focused on from a design perspective and that Evidation is also really focused on, is how do you maintain privacy over that [00:12:00] data such that people feel like it's secure, it's safe, and it's in the right hands.
where it can make a difference, but not in the hands of people that it's going to, you know, create harm or mistrust or something like that. And so a big part of, you know, what we do as a company is request every time your data is going to be used for something. So if you take a survey, we'll ask you, is it okay for us to share this data with researchers?
Is it okay to share this data with this particular So I can opt in
Tom Butta: to the
Meg Dryer: Yeah, that's really important. And, and I think that's really important because health is a long journey. It's a very long, it's your whole life. And if you want a longitudinal relationship with people, you have to build trust. And in order to build trust, you have to be transparent.
And that's kind of what we are really focused on. And what I'm really focused on from a design perspective is how do you build trust with, [00:13:00] you know, consumers?
Tom Butta: Sounds like one of the ways that you are building trust is by putting the control of the sharing of that data. In the hands of, of the consumer.
Meg Dryer: Exactly. We're super transparent about what is going on with your data, and we give you permission to control how and where and when it is used.
Tom Butta: Right. The idea of transparency is only as good as having control. Yes, exactly. that's key. Yeah. Yeah. So, so on January 28th, it's Data Privacy Day, and um, I mean, there's been so much change as it relates to, you know, rules governing, you know, privacy.
Consumers privacy and providing them with control, us with control, about what we want, choose to share and not share, and at least knowing the purpose of doing so. Can you touch on this just a little bit more in terms of the key learnings that you've made in terms of how you approach data privacy?
Meg Dryer: Yeah, I think the other thing about, you know, data privacy is there's a natural [00:14:00] tension between data privacy and regulation in healthcare and design.
Because design, like for example, You know, sending a push notification in a HIPAA regulated entity, you have to actually just say you have a notification in your secure message center. From a design perspective, that's a nightmare. Exactly. It's like me wanting to bang my head against a wall. Who wants to log into their secure message center?
No one, no one has the time, no one has the inclination, you know, et cetera. So there's this natural tension, I think, also between design and data privacy in healthcare. And I'm constantly towing that line of like, how do we create delightful. you know, experiences for people while also adhering to what is a very rigid regulatory environment, but also being ethical about things.
So I'm really careful about, you know, thoughtfully thinking through those design decisions, which is, [00:15:00] you know, a unique challenge, I think, to highly regulated industries like healthcare.
Tom Butta: Yeah. So what I've heard is that within the constraints, which are there for a purpose of these regulations and policies, You're just trying to design the best possible experience within those constraints, right, for people.
Yeah,
Meg Dryer: exactly. And there are things that like, you know, are much easier and rapid outside of healthcare, A B testing, for example. Um, so we, we do some creative things around that. We have an advisor community of hundreds of people that we launch our beta experiences with and allow them to give a ton of feedback.
We also, you know, pilot all of our stuff with a small set of users before launching them just so we can suss out both the sensitivities around privacy, if there are any concerns. Also like, is this causing anxiety? You know, healthcare doubles down on the emotion in ways that other experiences don't. So that's an important.
Part two is we always make [00:16:00] sure that we're testing things and, and even if our intent is good and we feel like we're communicating, we want to know that from our users. We want to know that they feel secure, that they feel safe, that they feel like they can trust us, that they feel like they have the level of transparency that they need.
And so we test out new features and, you know, things so that we are sure that that's the case.
Tom Butta: So what kind of, just give us a little bit more detail on the kind of things that are possible to track. It may not be the same for everybody.
Meg Dryer: Yeah, it's true. So anything you can track via wearables, so sleep, heart rate, pulse oximetry, activity level, water intake, nutrition, anything like that that are people kind of self tracking.
And then in addition to that, we track reported experience or lived experience through surveys that we issue people. There's an interesting combination in our app. of there will be times where you can opt into a program. For example, we have one around the flu, which [00:17:00] over 150, 000 people participated in, where we would kind of monitor in the background your activity data and things like your body temperature and etc, etc.
And if we saw a notable change in those things, we would prompt you with a, hey, we think something's going on. We combine that with publicly available data about flu rates to say, are you experiencing flu like symptoms? And if the answer is yes, then we would ask you a little more detail about that, like, okay, which ones of these are you, you know, experiencing?
And if we saw, you know, positive results to all of that, we would recommend that you go talk to your physician. As you know, there's some flu medications that are really helpful in managing symptoms, but you have to get them in the first 48 hours. And so that becomes really critical for treatment, but also becomes critical from a public health standpoint, because if I have the flu and I'm walking around my, you know, grocery store spreading, you know, the virus everywhere, where if we're prompting you like, oh, you might have flu like symptoms, go see someone, you're [00:18:00] diagnosed with the flu, you stay home.
You become, you know, that the spread of the flu lessens as well when we're able to do stuff like that. Wearable grade data and also surveys. Sometimes we'll ask those surveys separate from the wearable grade data. So we'll ask about experiences with particular conditions. We'll ask about experiences or attitudes towards maybe new treatments that might be coming out, etc.
So there's some of that as well. Part of what's really interesting and what I've learned about healthcare is, you know, evidation as an app, we reward people for taking healthy actions and we, you know, try and get people to participate in their health. And so we do have a point system. So your activity level, your sleep levels, we monitor those and then we give you points for taking healthy actions.
That's the extrinsic reward. But in the tons of research that I've done with our community, which is now over 5 million, you know, people. Oh, wow. I was going to ask about that. Yeah. Yeah. The reason people stay is [00:19:00] not that. The reason people stay with evidation is because they want their healthcare experience, whether that's living with a chronic condition or, you know, having an acute episode like I did with my sleep, they want it to mean something.
And I'm going to just. pause there because like it's actually really important for people for their lived experience with health to impact positively the experience of others in the advancement of healthcare for all. And that has been so surprising to me and so powerful. And so we'll see, for example, if we, if we send out Uh, you know, request to participate in research or like a recruitment for a clinical trial.
We'll see response rates of 60 percent where people are like, absolutely, I'm interested, which is unprecedented. I think for any app to have, you know, that high of levels of engagement, we see 90 percent engagement in our health [00:20:00] programs. When we run health programs around conditions like flu, we just launched one around migraine.
And again, I think it's because people really want to pay it
Tom Butta: forward. That's great. I know that you've just done a pretty big redesign of the app. Maybe you can, um, tell us why you did that. Yeah,
Meg Dryer: I think it, it, so our redesign really, well, one, I took over design, so that's where I started at Evidation. And I came in and I was like, hey, let's do a redesign.
Um, no, in fairness, when I came on, they were in the middle of a rebrand. So there was simultaneously, we had a rebranding exercise happening and we were also doing. Um, a design exercise, but you know, I think everything in healthcare could take a good hard look at the design of it because again, it's just more and more we're seeing consumer demand, like healthcare needs to be on parity with other app experiences that I have.
And so that's the impetus around the redesign was, one, we're giving the brand a big facelift. We used to have [00:21:00] two brands. We consolidated under the Evidation brand. And two, let's continue to push the envelope on making our app feel closer to and on parity with other app experiences
Tom Butta: that you have. Yeah.
If I could just comment on that. So I'm, it's really nice to hear you say that. Not surprised that somebody with your background says this because we often talk about how your best experience is often the latest experience that you've had in anything. And that becomes the standard. It doesn't take much for the standard to increase, right?
Or to, to improve. And so the expectations as a result of this new standard of this really intuitive, wonderful, helpful, supportive, quick, easy, simplifying my life type of an experience becomes a standard by which you evaluate everything else. Not necessarily in that category, but I'm talking about everything else.
And the good news for you is I suppose it's a good news, bad news thing. The bad news is that those [00:22:00] standards are pretty high because there's some really, really good work out there in terms of those intuitive Um, simple, um, experiences, um, the good news is in healthcare, typically that's not the case. So, to the degree you bring a consumer brand like experience to the healthcare industry, then, you know, you should be winning, which is obviously the case.
Meg Dryer: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You just. Hit the nail on the head. That's exactly what's going on
Tom Butta: in the process of doing the redesign. Is there advice that, you know, this is probably super intuitive to you because you're an expert in this, but is there advice that you might be able to, um, share with, with others who might consider the need?
Maybe there's stop because it seems pretty daunting. What advice would you give others who are in a similar position?
Meg Dryer: Yeah, I think there's a few things. So the first thing is, you have to involve your users. And this seems really intuitive to most people, but the degree to which companies do that, [00:23:00] actually isn't as deep, I think, as it needs to be in doing the redesign.
I went so far as to because healthcare is not like retail, it's not like ordering a pizza. It's very different and very sensitive. I went so deep as to do. Brand research with individuals around the color, like the complementary colors. We knew our primary brand color was going to stay yellow, but the complementary colors to our brand color.
And there's one story that stands out to me, which was, you know, I was showing these secondary or complementary brand colors to this woman I was doing, you know, firsthand qualitative research with. And I showed her the sheet, and she said, Why in the world would you make your brand color purple? And I paused, and I said, Tell me more about that.
And she said, In my culture, purple is the color of death. And I went, Wow! That is powerful! And I should not [00:24:00] use purple! Because if that's true for you and your culture, that's important, and that's broader than just one individual. And I wouldn't want to alienate. people just because like, again, we use the color of death in a healthcare company.
That's, that's not good. So I really think, you know, diving deep and doing your research, I'm a big believer in really deep qualitative research always, because people can't often articulate what their needs are and you can get. to the bottom of those through a deep conversation and by watching, you know, their everyday actions.
So, I think one, just really, really involve your users, your consumers, your customers as much as possible in co design. I think that's really important. And the second thing is, is sometimes we get stuck in what is and forget to go back to what could be or what should we be building. So, I've seen a number of redesigns that I've been a part of or that have happened that start with.
Here is our app today and don't, [00:25:00] aren't maybe courageous enough or risky enough to say, we might have to throw out 90 percent of this stuff and that's okay. So really when you go in and do a redesign, I like to have a complete beginner's mind co design with my customers in recreating an experience that makes sense for them.
And sometimes that means getting rid of things that are pretty precious. The third piece of advice I would have is just be patient. So, like, even in the Evidation app today, there are things where I'm like, oh, why is that still that way, you know? Because going back to what should be or what could be for my users does take a lot of investment from design, from product, from eng.
And so, for someone like me who's, like, maniacally focused on the, the details, the details take time. And you just have to give it the space that it
Tom Butta: requires. Thank you. That's really helpful. I'm sure people will find that, that's super valuable. I love, [00:26:00] I love that idea of the beginner's mindset. And it's not dragging the past with you, but it's actually leaving the past behind and envisioning what the future could look like, should look like, and starting from that.
So the other day that's coming up is January 1st. Um, so what happens on January 1st, right? We make resolutions to do things different and better. We make lists and all kinds of things like that. And I expect. That this has a lot to do with people who want to, I don't know, live a healthier life, be healthier, and all that comes from that.
And I would expect that that becomes a really important moment for people to find out about you and download you and try the app first. Is that
Meg Dryer: true? Yes, it is true. We always see a lift early in the year.
Tom Butta: So then my next question is What also happens, I don't know what the timeline is, somewhere in the next, I don't know, few weeks?
A few months. Yeah, a few months. It kind of, kind of falls off in the list. Like there's not stuff that's checked off that's on the [00:27:00] list or you kind of trail off in terms of what resolutions you've made. So how do you? How do you keep engagement up? Um, there's these periodic times, maybe you've had some episode, maybe you've had a New Year's resolution, maybe some critical moment has occurred in your life that you've decided to take a little bit more control.
How do you keep people at it so it becomes part of their
Meg Dryer: life? Yeah, you know, this is my favorite question. Um, and it goes, yeah, and it goes back to research because when we were doing, so when I started at Evidation, I was like, really need to understand the consumer, need to understand who these people are, what motivates them, et cetera.
And in doing a lot of qualitative research, we started to notice this pattern. which is exactly what you talked about, which is high engagement, falling off. But what we noticed was if you designed for the off moments, you keep that longitudinal engagement over time. [00:28:00] Rather than saying, I want you to engage in your health all the time, which just isn't realistic.
Like taking care of your health isn't like buying a new TV. It's not exciting. It's not fun. It's not sexy. It's a lot of work. And so what you, it takes a commitment. And so no one, even the like most committed person to health, no one can sustain that commitment. for an indefinite period of time. And so what we noticed is people would go through these bursts and then they'd go off and then they'd go through a burst and then they'd go off and then they'd go through a burst and then they'd go off.
And if you are trying to force someone in your app or your experience to maintain that high level, they drop off. If you craft an experience where it's okay for it to take a backseat for a while, It's totally fine. You don't even have to engage with us if you don't want for weeks on end, then they'll kind of come back on their own.
And so, [00:29:00] in, in the design of the app, that's partially why we have this, like, you can connect a wearable, and then you just keep accruing points for taking steps, but That's in the background. If all you want to do is go about your daily life, you've connected your wearable to evidation, you'll continue to earn points.
And so I think any app that's focused on health or, you know, even focused on behavior change or whatnot has to think very carefully through purposefully designing for off moments so that people can re engage when they're ready. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that I think we've noticed that people focus on different things over time.
So I might have a burst where I'm really interested in my activity level and I'm really focused on increasing that. And then that wanes. My interest in that is I'm good, either I've achieved a habit or I'm kind of over it and I'm exhausted. And then, so they'll switch their focus to something like sleep, and then they're [00:30:00] monitoring their sleep for a while.
And then, you know, that kind of wanes either because, again, I've, you know, figured it out or I haven't and I'm too exhausted to keep spending time on it. So then I would focus on my water intake for a while. And so the nice thing about our app is that we build in an opportunity for you to switch that focus.
That's one of the new features that's coming in our app is, you know, allowing you to personalize what it is that you want to focus on at this moment in time. And then when we see things waning, we'll prompt you to be like, Hey, do you want to, you know, Tom, we know you've been really focused on your activity level.
How about you try sleep on for a while instead? And so I think that's the other thing is giving people proactive things to evolve. Two, rather than just dropping
Tom Butta: out. Very interesting. This has been a great conversation. I'm sure a lot, a lot of people will take a lot from it, uh, especially as they think about how to create experiences that are in fact delightful for their customers.
I'm sure they can apply a lot of the learnings. Uh, if you can do it in [00:31:00] healthcare, then you should be able to do it. You know, in most any other industry. So the last part of the discussion is really just a kind of a rapid fire series of questions. They're very simple. So let's get started. You ready? Yes.
Okay. Android or Apple?
Meg Dryer: Apple. It's actually a requirement for any job I will take is that I get to use an Apple product.
Tom Butta: Okay. Yeah. Um, it has probably to have something to do with the experience design of it, right? For sure. Yeah. Okay. Is there an app you can't live without besides Evidation?
Meg Dryer: Yeah, you know, right now I have a pretty strong mindfulness practice.
And right now there's an app called Open that I've just discovered that is fantastic. It's very simple. And every day it provides me with suggestions around meditation, movement, breath work, and sound. And it's just, it's beautifully designed. It's very minimalist in its design. It takes all the guesswork out of what I need to do.
I love it. It's [00:32:00] fantastic.
Tom Butta: Thank you for sharing that. I'll have to check it out open. Are there any app features, um, that you're seeing others doing that, that you find fascinating?
Meg Dryer: Yes. I think, you know, anytime an app there, well, let's say this, there are needs that are obvious. You know, we can meet. There are needs that are articulated by users that you can meet.
And then there are needs that are often so deep, users are not able to articulate them. And I love when I see an app that is doing something about that. And so, you know, the most recent example that I have is Lyft launched Women Plus, which is where women and non binary individuals can opt into preference for being driven by And that's like one of those things that is so again, we probably wouldn't be able to articulate that.
But as a woman getting into a car at [00:33:00] night in a city, I actually probably would feel safer with a woman driver. I might feel safer, or I might have trauma in my background. And I wasn't able to articulate that. And so I just love, I love it when I see things like that, where an app is delivering on it. A need that someone has that they probably would never be able to articulate super well.
So I
Tom Butta: love that. Yeah. That's really great. I actually didn't, I didn't know that was the case. Very cool. Okay. Uh, more frivolous. Uh, so favorite vacation spot?
Meg Dryer: Is it a regular vacation spot or like that I just, that I've ever been? Okay.
Tom Butta: How about dream vacation spot?
Meg Dryer: Oh, well, dream vacation spot is the Seychelles.
I've never been there. I've wanted to go there since I was like 10, but my favorite place I've ever been is actually Bhutan. I've never been to a country like it. It's just so peaceful and beautiful and dedicated to its culture and heritage. What's
Tom Butta: the elevation of Bhutan? Oh,
Meg Dryer: I mean, ridiculous. [00:34:00] Yeah. So high.
Tom Butta: How do you get there,
Meg Dryer: right? Yeah. Well, you very carefully is the answer. Um, when I remember flying into Bhutan from India and you know, you're coming down and you think you're at like 5, 000 feet, but you're at like 20, 000 feet and you're in the middle of all the mountains all of a sudden and you're like, what?
Like, we gotta be really careful. They actually, you have to be really careful about landing in Bhutan. I think it's one of the most dangerous airports in the, in the world. Yeah.
Tom Butta: Okay. Um, any shows you're binge
Meg Dryer: watching? I love a good crime show and I'm binge watching a British show called Bodyguard. It's fantastic.
Yes. Okay. It's
Tom Butta: great. Yeah. What, uh, service? It's on Netflix. Okay. Bodyguard. Well, thank you very, very much, uh, Meg. It's been great chatting with you and, uh, we really appreciate your time. Well,
Meg Dryer: thank you, Tom. It's been likewise a delight. Thank
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