As another year begins, millions of people make it one of their New Year’s resolutions to live a healthier lifestyle. A direct translation to this surge of motivation arrives in the form of subscriptions to new diet and fitness apps, promising sustainable fitness gains and a “healthier” version of its users.

Standing out from its competitors is Noom, a diet and weight-loss app that advocates for long-term behavioral changes and takes on a “psychological approach” to food. Today, we’ll be taking an insider’s look at Noom and analyze the various techniques applied to their user experience!

Diet and Weightloss App Noom [Credit]

What does Noom Do?

Some of Noom’s core functionalities include:

1. 🧑‍🏫 Daily lessons that inform users about healthy eating habits and strategies + weekly challenges
2. 🫂 A large community of other Noom users and personal coaching that offer extra support
3. 🔧 Various tools such as meal logging, blood pressure/blood sugar tracker, and more.

The Onboarding Experience

Noom first asks its users to complete a very, very long quiz to create a personalized plan and match them to a behavioral profile. Although this upfront investment of time and energy may raise concerns about users quitting midway, here are some things that Noom did to keep users engaged:

• Classical UI/UX strategies such as progress bars, arranging questions and text in clean, small chunks, and a countdown timer upon the payment stage.
• Appealing to ethos, logos, and pathos—achieved with information such as testimonials from previous users, stats from research papers, etc.
• Small breaks/fillers in between questions, reinforcing Noom’s values and providing motivation to users.

Psychological Motivation