CalmUnity Virtual group meditation increases personal enjoyment, consistency, and importance Prasanth Veerina, Cayla Pettinato, and Onkur Sen For d.compress Spring 2015

1. Prasanth Veerina, Cayla Pettinato, and Onkur Sen
Virtual group meditation increases personal
enjoyment, consistency, and importance

2. Stressor
I’m doing
something
wrong!

3. The Value of Group Practice
“People have a lot of ideas
about what meditation is or
isn’t. They feel more
reassured when they hear
others talking about it, and
it helps to normalize what
students are going
through.”
Robert Cusick, CCT Course
Instructor
“Being in a group setting is
really supportive. When my
classmates share their
experience, it gives me
something to compare
mine against.”
Claire, MBSR Course
Student

4. HMW

5. SBTM
Join one 5-10 minute meditation
session each day

6. Prototype 1 (post it)

9. A User’s Story

10. Trial Design
Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
Pre-survey Breathing Stress-relief Body scan Walking Loving-kindness +
Post-survey
8 users, age range: 18-22

11. Attitude Towards Meditation

12. Check the box for each day of the trial that
you meditated:
# Answer %
1 Wednesday (breathing) 50%
2 Thursday (stress-releasing) 75%
3 Friday (body scan) 63%
4 Saturday (walking) 38%
5 Sunday (loving-kindness) 63%
Pre: 100% meditate less than once a month
Post: 100% meditated 2/5 days and 50% meditated 3/5 days

13. Guided
meditations
Reflection
Board
Seeing
other
people
Simple
Commit
to time
Lack of
meditation
options
Need better
reminder
Design
Lack of reflection
options
What Users
Liked
What Users
Didn’t Like

14. Seeing others =
“One day I was busy working and I was going to skip the
meditation, but then I saw that 5 or 6 other people were
planning to meditate with me at that time and I didn’t want
to let them down. I felt that if they could do it, I could too!”
“I liked seeing other people, especially if they were people I
knew. I felt like we were sharing something in common in the
midst of our busy lives.”
Drawing =
“I liked being able to see the pictures that everyone else drew
at the ends of sessions. It made me feel better knowing that
my experiences aligned with others.”
vs.
“It was cool to have an opportunity for reflection right after
exiting meditation, but sometimes it felt a little forced. I didn't
really like having to think of something to draw myself.”
“This is the first time that I have meditated consistently. It is very relaxing. I now bring
the simple focus on my breath into other stressful situations to relax.”
User Opinions

15. Users benefit from group practice even
without physical proximity
Users benefit from structure but need
flexibility to establish long-term habits
Conclusive NOIs

16. Next Steps
● More options/user
customization (times,
reminders, meditations,
reflection)
● Do not disturb mode
● Workplace integration?