Philam Vitality: Reimagining the health & wellness experience

Project Type

Design Sprint

Role

Lead Designer

Researcher

Co-Facilitator

Team

+ Myself
+ Facilitator

+ 15 Participants from Philam

Timeline

2 Weeks

Context

Philam Life, a Philippine-based insurance company, offers Philam Vitality

It’s a science-backed wellness program that rewards healthy living with premium discounts, extra coverage, and partner incentives. They reached out to participate in a Design Sprint as a way to validate and reimagine a unified mobile app experience.

Problem

Users found switching between apps confusing

Philam Life launched two separate apps for their wellness program—one for tracking workouts and points, the other for earning rewards through steps.

Solution

A unified mobile app that streamlines the Philam Vitality experience into one intuitive platform

It’s a gamified wellness tool that encourages healthy habits—stepping, exercising, and monitoring health—with rewards like vouchers and insurance benefits.

Impact

Key features validated in design sprint has been implemented in the mobile app

The Philam Vitality app (now AIA Vitality Philippines) include:

Health assessment to determine Vitality Age

Seamless integration with fitness trackers

Earn points by meeting personalized weekly activity targets

Instant rewards for meeting milestones

Biometric login & notifications

Project Timeline

Research

1 Week

User Interviews

Design Sprint

1 Week

Defining Challenge & Ideation

Voting & Storyboarding

Prototyping

User Testing

Retrospective

Design Sprint Process

[0] Research

To better understand the current challenges of Vitality users, we conducted qualitative interviews with 15 users with different membership tiers, from all regions of the Philippines, and with varying professions.

[1] Problem & Ideation

We started the Design Sprint by defining challenges and reframing these into How Might We questions. The Philam team came with numerous How Might We questions, however, they were able to vote and agree on this:

question

HMW reimagine the Vitality experience for our customers?

Sprint Questions

After defining the challenge, the Philam team voted and agreed that the main question of this process was to find out how Vitality can be more engaging and encourage daily use for its users.

2-Year Goal

With the sprint questions in mind, the team came up with a goal of being the go-to company for health and wellness.

Lightning Demos

With the Sprint challenge and goal defined, the team conducted Lightning Demos to explore existing solutions. They presented well-researched examples including Manulife MOVE, MyFitnessPal, and Lemonade to inspire idea generation.

Solution Concepts

The first day concluded with each team member generating individual solutions. Warm-up exercises like note-taking, doodling, and Crazy 8s helped spark ideas. Each participant then created a three-step concept with clear titles and narratives, resulting in strong, problem-focused solutions.

[2] Voting & Storyboarding

On the second day of the Design Sprint, the team reviewed and voted on the presented concepts from yesterday. Each concept was anonymously presented to ensure unbiased evaluation. The team selected a solution focused on earning points through challenges and redeeming rewards.

User Test Flow

During this activity, each team member wrote the 5-step flow that the users will perform from start to end. They all presented and voted for the best User Test Flow that will be used for Storyboarding.

Storyboarding

From the User Test Flow, each step is discussed in detail to sketch out the user journey of the application. There should be enough information, that way nothing is changed during the prototyping the next day. We made wireframes to visually understand the storyboard.

[3] Prototyping

After storyboarding, we designed and prototypes over 30 screens on Adobe XD, while making sure to follow UX best practices and Philam Vitality’s branding guidelines. The biggest challenge was the limited time and ensuring that the mobile app is simple yet user-friendly despite having many different features discussed previously.

[4] User Testing

The objective of Day 4 is to collect valuable feedback from Philam users through a usability test. This allows us to determine whether users can successfully complete specific tasks, assess their efficiency in performing those tasks, and identify any design or user experience issues that may require refinement.


We developed a set of guided questions and tasks for five participants—each with different ages, membership statuses, and professions—to gather diverse feedback on the prototype.

Key Findings

Most participants praised the modern look and unified app

Challenges (e.g. basketball, yoga) and rewards weren’t relevant to the participants

Participants liked seeing a summary of their ePlan, however, found it too distracting on the Dashboard

Lack of ePlan payment options

[5] Retrospective

On the final day of the Design Sprint, the Philam team reviewed user feedback to identify key likes, dislikes, and areas for improvement. Proposed iterations were discussed and prioritized using the MoSCoW Method, helping the team determine which features to refine in the next version of the prototype.

Iterations

The Dashboard underwent the most iterations based on user feedback. Interviews revealed that users rarely check Policy Coverage or Investment Values daily. Instead, the Dashboard was redesigned to highlight daily challenges, assessments, and redeemable rewards—encouraging consistent engagement through activities that offer tangible incentives.

Before

After

Takeaways

A few things I've learned from the design sprint with Philam Life:

Clarify the problem statement. A focused question like “How might we design a Vitality app for daily use?” helps steer the team toward relevant solutions.

Prioritize alignment in remote settings. Frequent check-ins are essential to avoid miscommunication and ensure shared understanding.

Focus on Solution Concepts. Grasping the rationale behind proposed ideas helps align solutions with business goals.

Take structured interview notes. During usability tests, detailed and organized note-taking is crucial to capture meaningful insights, especially when feedback is scattered.

Overall, the Design Sprint enabled the team to explore critical business questions and co-create solutions that enhance the Vitality experience. The most valuable takeaway was learning to balance user needs with business objectives through rapid iteration and validation.