Yoga Practice Journal app

DRAW HATHA

ProjectApp (iOS)

Yoga has become a global leader in wellness, celebrated through events like International Yoga Day. According to Forbes, approximately 37 million people practice yoga in the U.S., with 21% of the Canadian population and 30% of the Dutch population engaging in mindfulness activities such as meditation and yoga. A Yoga Alliance study reports a 150% increase in male yoga practitioners over the past four years.

In South Korea, the yoga industry has experienced significant growth since the early 2000s. With over 3 million practitioners, 50,000 certified instructors, and around 10,000 yoga centers, the domestic market is valued at approximately 4 trillion KRW.

www.fortunekorea.co.kr

Summary

Despite the massive number of yoga practitioners, how many are truly integrating the energy gained from their practice into their daily lives? To explore this question, we developed an MVP and released it in early November 2024.

Unlike sports, yoga is a discipline. Draw Hatha was designed to help users connect their yoga practice with everyday life, enabling them to discover themselves and live more intentionally through self-assurance. To reflect the continuity of practice, we crafted a thoughtful brand experience while deeply considering users' narratives of balance and harmony in life.

Team Greedy_v

Our journey began in 2023 when we first met and started shaping Draw Hatha. The team’s leader, Bokyung, originally conceived the idea as a yoga instructor, and while each of us continued working full-time, we dedicated our time to bringing this app to life.

We held weekly online meetings and gathered in person once a month. Through this process, we proved that meaningful results could be achieved even through remote collaboration.

As we planned the app, we encountered several turning points. While we explored many interesting ideas in the early stages, we deliberately narrowed our focus to features that directly addressed the core problem we aimed to solve. After all, the goal of an MVP is validation, not perfection.

Bokyung Kwon

Team Leader

Product & Project Manager

Juyeon Rachel Lee

Product Designer with Branding & Marketing Expertise

Jail Lee

Software Engineer

Eunji Song

FE Developer

Team Greedy_v

Following the MVP launch, I moved on to pursue my own goals, but the bond within Team Greedive remains strong. The time and experiences we shared have created a lasting connection.

Responsibility

As the sole product designer, I led the overall design process, covering product strategy, UI/UX design, brand experience (BX) design, and marketing design.

Product Strategy

  • Defined the core user experience and structured the data information architecture accordingly.
  • Designed the UX flow to ensure that users could meaningfully accumulate and reflect on their yoga practice records.

Branding & BX Design

  • Established Draw Hatha's core value as ‘consistency in yoga practice and its meaning in daily life’ and crafted brand storytelling and key visuals aligned with this concept.
  • Designed the brand experience (BX) to help users naturally perceive the value of their yoga journey.

Product Design

  • Developed wireframes based on the structured data information architecture and defined user flows and interactions.
  • Ensured an intuitive UI/UX while maintaining brand identity.
  • Proactively established a design system to streamline the development process and collaborated closely with developers for implementation.
  • Designed error cases and solutions to accommodate various user scenarios.

MVP Hypothesis & Validation Methods

Background

The purpose of MVP hypothesis and validation is to define our PMF (Product-Market Fit) and assess the feasibility of our revenue model. We planned to conduct a validation period of approximately six months.

Hypothesis & Validation

  1. Users who practice yoga more than three times a week will use the Draw Hatha app at least three times a week.
    • Can be tracked using Firebase.
  2. Users will focus on yoga as a ‘practice’ rather than just a workout.
    • Can be validated through information settings.
    • Users can be categorized based on whether they engage in Free Journaling.
  3. People who practice yoga prefer personal text-based journaling.
    • Users can be categorized based on whether they engage in Free Journaling.
  4. More than 50% of Draw Hatha users will be heavy users (experienced practitioners).
    • User groups can be segmented into light and heavy users based on weekly usage frequency (e.g., using the app a certain number of times per week).
Yoga class practicing together

Problem Space

❓We started with these questions :

  • How can the fulfilling energy felt on the yoga mat be carried into daily life?
  • If we are more aware of the state of our body and mind, wouldn’t it be possible to have more personalized and effective practice?
  • Can we sustain a yoga-like state in everyday life through consistent motivation?

Current Situation of Our Potential Audience

After Yoga Practice…
↓
Users don't do anything
Some record in several ways, such as writing a journal or drawing.
↑
?
Users receive no feedback.

Competitive App Research (method: Apple App Store)

When searching for "yoga" in app store
↓
Services that allow users to follow a flow based on the type of practice.
Services that provide pose information based on the type of practice.
Services that display information about local yoga studios, allowing users to write and view reviews after visiting.
Others
↓
Numerous workout tracking apps
Numerous note-taking apps
Numerous diary apps

Problem Statements

Difficulty in Tracking the Effects of Practice

Users find it challenging to record or track their physical and mental changes after yoga practice.

Lack of Personalized Recommendations

Yoga practitioners struggle to identify the appropriate yoga poses or deficient chakras based on their current condition.

Lack of Mindfulness and Self-Reflection

Yoga impacts both physical and mental health, yet many users fail to reflect on themselves or record their emotional state after practice, causing the effects to dissipate.

Lack of Consistency in Yoga Practice

Users aiming to maintain a regular yoga practice often lack motivation in their daily lives.

Goal

Enable users to visually track their progress through records and monitor changes over time.

Provide personalized recommendations based on user records to support more effective practice.

Help users develop the habit of recording their emotions and physical state, fostering resilience to overcome daily challenges.

Encourage consistent practice through personalized feedback and recommendations based on their records.

Expected User Experience

Self-observation and journaling iteration loop leading to change and growth

At first,
we had too much ideas…😳

Community
Magazine
Various ways for journaling
Vision Board (User can visualize for their goal.)
Affirmation with the user's voice that user can make sure their achivement.
Save journal with PDF File

At first, we had a lot of exciting ideas, but we couldn’t include everything in the first version. I remember wondering, “Which feature should I design first?” Since we approached yoga from both a physical and philosophical perspective, even just focusing on Journaling and Tracking offered multiple ways to support Yoginis.

However, it wasn’t immediately clear which feature would define our app. We needed a core experience that users would instantly recognize as “This is what our app is all about!” As we analyzed the data structure, everything pointed back to Journaling—since Tracking relied on recorded data. That meant the very first action a user should take in the app was to log their practice.

With this in mind,
we decided to focus on the main feature that directly solves the problem, rather than trying to include everything we wanted (X).

So, we carried out the spec-out process based on the following criteria:

Features that require a sufficient user base to be effective.
Features to be included after the PMF (Product-Market Fit) becomes clearer.
Non-core features that may inefficiently consume development resources at this stage.

Key Functions in Product

After going through spec-out process, our final release specs were categorized into three main areas:

JournalingTrackingReward
JournalingSet up / Yoga journey logging

Goal

Help users deepen their self-awareness and reflection by recording their yoga practice experiences and emotions.

  • Logging completed yoga sessions
  • Recording physical condition during practice
  • Recording emotional state during practice
  • Free journaling for personalized reflections
TrackingCalendar / Monthly Report

Goal

Visualizing progress and identifying patterns to provide meaningful feedback to users.

  • Viewing practice progress on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis
  • Analyzing recorded physical and emotional states to determine chakra balance
  • Recommending suitable yoga poses based on the user's condition
RewardSketchbook

Goal

To encourage consistent yoga practice and self-reflection, allowing users to rediscover the meaning of their journey through a completed illustration and quote.

  • Each journal entry gradually completes an illustration, with the final piece revealed on the 7th entry to encourage motivation.
  • Once the illustration is complete, a meaningful quote is provided to inspire self-reflection.
  • Users can save the completed artwork as an image on their device for personal collection.

Information Architecture

Draw Hatha information architecture diagram

Wireframe

Journaling

Journaling wireframe flow

Tracking

Tracking wireframe flow

Reward

Reward wireframe flow

Lean
Branding

Brand eXperience Design

Every service exists based on practical needs and value. However, with Draw Hatha, I felt that we needed to place more weight on value. Yoga is more than just exercise—it is a deep experience connected to meditation, energy (chakras), and mindfulness. That’s why I aimed to design a unique experience that only Draw Hatha could provide.

At this stage, I realized that delivering a consistent story and message was crucial. And that’s where Lean Branding began. I call it Lean Branding because it is composed only of the essential elements that serve our purpose.

DRHT Design System

"A good design system should be scalable and flexible." There’s no single right way to build one, and AI has made the process much easier. But to ensure the product grows in the right direction, it’s important to keep its unique identity and details that enhance the user experience. With this in mind, we followed the basics of Atomic Design while creating a design system that fits Draw Hatha and our way of working together.

DRHT design system reference sheet
DRHT Design System(Coming soon)

Design Highlights

Principles Behind the Home Screen Design

  • As a designer, I believe a well-designed home screen should immediately communicate what the user needs to do.
  • The core features must be intuitively recognizable.

The "Journaling" feature, which previously existed as a single tab in the bottom navigation, has been transformed into the main button on the home screen. We designed the visual hierarchy so that when users log in and arrive at the home screen, "Journaling" naturally becomes the first action they take.

Home screen wireframeHome screen final design

Contextual Experience

Instead of ending with a single journal entry, recorded data is seamlessly integrated across multiple touchpoints in a meaningful context, encouraging continuous self-reflection and improvement.

1. "View My Journey" Button in the Free Journaling Screen

Before writing a Free Journal entry, users can review their previous records from earlier stages. This helps them reflect on their state more consistently and create deeper, more meaningful journal entries.

2. "Check Chakras and Recommend Poses" Button in the Monthly Calendar

After completing a journal entry, users receive recommended chakras and poses based on their input. To keep this information accessible, they can check these recommendations again when reviewing past entries in the Monthly Calendar. This helps users reflect on their past practice and stay motivated for future sessions.

Immersive Visual Experience

To enhance DrawHatha’s brand experience, I designed immersive animations using key symbols and fundamental shapes. Rather than serving as mere decorative elements, these dynamic graphics were thoughtfully integrated to create a seamless flow between practice and journaling, fostering a deeper sense of engagement. This design approach helps users stay visually focused and immersed in their practice.

Onboarding Screen
Log in Screen
Prepare to Journal Screen

Sketchbook Illustrations & Animation

I designed the illustrations for each canvas in the Sketchbook menu and added an animation that gradually completes the artwork as users log their entries. Sketchbook helps users stay motivated to journal regularly while making the experience more meaningful by using themes inspired by yoga philosophy. For the first release, the chosen theme was Ahimsa, which means "non-violence." To visually represent this concept, I used flowers as the main motif, carefully designing them based on their symbolic meanings and corresponding chakra colors.

Peace Lily
Lotus
White Poppy
Peony
Chamomile
Lavender
Olive Tree

Feature

Journaling

  1. We provide a preparatory screen with appropriate interactions to help users get into the right mindset before writing their journal.
  2. Users can easily select their completed yoga practice and their physical and emotional state using chips and cards, while a progress bar indicates their current stage in the journaling process.
  3. In the Free Journal screen, users can review their previous selections as a whole, reflect on them, and freely write their thoughts.

Tracking

  1. Once a user completes a journal entry, the home screen displays the record for that day. By showing only the daily entry, the app encourages users to maintain a consistent habit of journaling, reinforcing the importance of daily reflection and helping with motivation.
  2. Users can review their entries on a weekly and monthly basis through the calendar view:
  • Weekly records are designed with a simple UI that allows users to quickly grasp their overall practice progress at a glance.
  • Monthly records use a calendar interface, enabling users to see their practice history at a glance. Selecting a specific date reveals detailed entries, and for free journaling, users can edit their past entries at any time for more flexible record-keeping.
  1. The monthly data analysis provides a comprehensive summary of the user’s recorded sessions. Based on their journal entries, the app suggests chakras and yoga poses to enhance their practice. These insights help users deepen their experience and encourage them to explore new approaches, fostering continuous growth and transformation.

Reward System

  1. Every time a user logs a journal entry, part of an illustration is revealed. After seven entries, the full image is completed along with an inspirational quote, motivating users to keep journaling.
  2. Each sketchbook has a theme, and the illustrations inside are meaningful and connected to chakras. This helps users feel more inspired in their yoga practice and journaling.
  3. This reward system encourages users to make journaling a habit and apply what they gain from their practice to daily life. By offering visual rewards and motivational messages, it makes the experience more engaging and rewarding.
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