You’ve been clamoring to get your hands on a Basis band. We’d love to get one to you.
So, where is it?
We’re on it. Making an integrated hardware+software experience is a process of testing, learning and refining. It just takes more time than you anticipate. As Basis’ COO and product lead, my focus (and the team’s) is on delivering a great user experience that delights and inspires people to engage with their health.
My weekend post-activity ritual:
Four Barrel Coffee
With that in mind, I’d like to share some of our lessons learned. We still aren’t quite ready to do product reveals, but I am sharing specific insights that are influencing our path. We’ll tell more in subsequent posts.
Lesson 1 – Make Data Compelling
A device like Basis generates lots of data by continuously capturing vital signs. Our data-centric users love that about it and, in beta testing, always ask for more. Net, the Basis team is continually tempted to build more charts, tables and graphs to visualize the data.
When we feel that urge to build “one more chart or summary table”, we try hard to remember that people aren’t just looking for data. They are also looking for insight and meaning in the data. Most biometric data is reasonably flat (especially when viewed over time) so you really have to focus on visualizations that bring patterns and exceptional events to light. We try hard to surface those events and make user interactions with the data delightful and insightful.
Here are 3 examples we’ve seen that we feel do a great job of bringing patterns and exceptions to light:
i. Trulia — Heatmap that visually highlights days/times when people hunt for housing (showing behavior changes over time)
Image: Truila, Source
ii. New York Times — Stacked area chart of how Americans spend their days ( showing dynamic cumulative changes over time)
Image: New York Times, Source
iii. GE — Stream graph of which appliances contribute the most to energy use and when (showing variable changes along specific timelines)
Image: General Electric, Source
Lesson 2: Lots of data ≠ Engagement
While we still rely on charts and graphs of the raw data to surface facts and discover patterns, our primary focus is to ensure that Basis is doing its job as a tool for people to stay engaged with their health.
Image: Abstruse Goose, Source
In our beta testing, we found that what works best for engagement is a combination of:
- Suggesting small, actionable steps based on a user’s data;
- Feedback loops that reinforce positive behavior, and;
- Having content that keeps the experience fresh over time.
There’s lots of interesting literature and work around those principles (check out Nudge, The Decision Tree and The Power of Habit, as well as apps from fellow startups like Lift.do, and SuperBetter).
We’ve resisted the urge to smother users with data because it’s counterproductive. Getting people to stay consistently engaged with their wellbeing in a fun, positive way is our #1 goal.
Lesson 3: Test early and often
The best part about working on a product like Basis is that you can personally use and get others to try early versions of the product. Like any product company, we do lots of testing – on the bench, in the lab and, most importantly in the real world.
Our beta testing frequently uncovers things that we don’t always find in lab testing. For example, how everyday activities like driving, typing or even a yoga pose can be detected by motion sensors. Or how a change in hardware requires further changes to the software or overall experience.
We found that creativity loves constraint. The most important benefit of our “early and often” testing is that it revealed engineering and usability constraints that the Basis team rose to solve. We discovered that asking users to enter data to self-log data was not sustainable (too much friction). We discovered that users stop wearing consumer health devices several times a day (by showering, forgetting) which means there’s no data tracked. This breaks day-over-day and week-over week comparisons. We also found unexpected correlations such as how your daily activity level can affect your sleep quality. Learning about these early in the process help us incorporate them into our product design.
Test early and often. We recommend it.
In Conclusion: Shooting High
These are 3 important lessons that we learned in the process of building Basis. As you can see, we have been making significant progress on delivering a compelling experience since our update at CES. Basis is taking a fundamentally different approach by focusing on insights and engagement, instead of just presenting charts and stats.
If there’s one last lesson I’ll leave you with, it’s that none of this would be possible without a dedicated team. Building a product like this isn’t easy but it is easier if you have the right scientists, designers and engineers, playing well together as a team. We’ve put together a great team so far and will always look for the right people as we continue to grow. (PS: If you’re interested in joining the Basis team, check out our careers section and drop us a note.)
Thanks for reading!
Bharat
COO, Basis
thanks a lot, bharat. i’m confident that basis can emulate these graphs well! i can’t wait for the band!
oh, and if you were looking for beta testers… i am eager and open.
Thanks Graham!
Great post! I’m stealing those 3 ideas to increase engagement for my own marketing analytics startup…
Thanks Martin! Glad you enjoyed the post.
how does activity affect sleep quality? I might guess that high activity impacts negatively on sleep quality i.e. makes it harder to sleep. Which sounds kind of odd doesn’t it, but it’s my experience
Thanks Tim. With Basis, you won’t have to guess any more – you’ll just know the answer based on your data
Thanks for reminding us that there’s a huge valley of hard work between an idea, a prototype, and a saleable product. That being said, looking forward to getting my hands on one soon!
Thanks Anu! We’re looking forward to getting it out to everyone soon.
Glad to see you arent trying to have a jawbone up on your hands. Hope all is going well with the legal action as well. Would love to help test as well. I think it would be interesting to see how it handles the variety of weather in the Midwest (Sub-zero to 100+ degree days)
Thanks Mike!
Spot on Bharat – can’t wait for my Basis!
Thanks Maser! Much appreciated.
I, too, would be interested in Beta Testing.
Riffing off a reply above, I am wondering if you have been beta testing in various climates, and how that effects the readings. There is certainly going to be a lot more moisture reading if I am just sitting outside here in Indiana than if I were at my parent’s house in San Bruno.
Guys, it looks promising to me what you are doing, even though I was a bit surprised / suspicious that I didn’t encounter any negative comments on your blogs I read so far
For one and half months I’ve been keeping a diary in which I make notes every 2-3 hours when I’m awake about the sort of activity I’ve just done. I wanna use it for getting insights into trends / habits in my life and I was thinking about ways on how to automate the measurements of some processes when a friend told me about Basis. When I read through your website, I remembered an article I read in March and it intrigued me a lot, perhaps also contributed to the idea of my activity-diary. It’s “The personal analytics of my life” from Stephen Wolfram: http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2012/03/the-personal-analytics-of-my-life/ , it could be interesting for you guys to have a look at. The other thingie that comes to my mind is lumosity (www.lumosity.com), a web platform for mental training with statistics and capabilities of tracking progress. I’ve been using for more than 2 years (I play on average 2.4 days per week) and I love it for its fun character, simplicity, incentives and intuitive use. This is the sort of web interface I’d like to have from you guys and I think you have the potential for building it. Take a look at it, perhaps create a trial account and see how it works!
Thanks Görög for the helpful links. We’re very familar with Lumos Labs (a fellow startup in SF). Looking forward to getting Basis shipped so that you can incorporate its insights into your activity diary.
Bharat-
Thank you thank you thank you. I have been on the sign up list for the product for what feels like forever, but I would much rather wait for a carefully-crafted, meticulously-tested product than have something attached to my arm that just gives me a ton of data and thinks I can process that data on my own.
That seems to be the case with the other products I’ve tried (not to bad mouth the other products, of course) and it probably speaks more to my limitations in creating excel spreadsheets or following the instructions on how to read/group/interpret/use data by those smart folks over at Quantified Self, but I’m really excited that you guys know that having the data and using the data in a really helpful manner are two entirely separate issues.
I look forward to launch and I appreciate these kind of updates from you, Jef and the team.
Thanks Mary! We’ll keep the updates coming and also try to get the product out to everyone soon.
Awesome! I’ve been holding out on buying another product since I heard about Basis! Have high hopes for the product!
Thanks Greg!
I too would love to beta test – the bugs love me they always find me. I am in So Cal and just tried Fitbit and have to return it…..Why……cause they say it’s water resistant, but I killed it….LOL……by drooling on it while I was sleeping and it was tracking my sleep. Loved their food, glucose, weight and other stuff.
Meaning, being diabetic, it’s nice to be able to log everything in one place, rather than all separate apps for everything.
Any updates on the state of the legal case and how testing/development is coming. Any chance you be able to have a the release product at CES this year?
Thanks for taking the time to GET IT RIGHT on release rather than rushing to market and letting BUYERS be your beta testers. I look forward to getting my own Basis band….but I am definitely happy to wait for it so that when I get it, it meets expectations. From your post…it looks like it will exceed expectations.
Thanks Jarrett. We’re definitely trying hard to ensure we ship a polished product that can then evolve based on your feedback.
When you do finally release the Basis Band, please, please, please pair it with an excellent food log app (with a BAR CODE scanner), like My Fitness Pal, that works with Android!
Thanks John. Good suggestion. We’ll see how we might incorporate that.
I’ve been registered and waiting on this for months. I was somewhat patient when you were updating us via your blog but you’ve not posted an update in months so I’m afraid that patience has run out and I’m going to get the Nike fuelband – a lesser product but one I can actually use at least. Real shame.
Sorry to hear that Adam. We’ll have something to announce soon. Just not yet.
Any updates?
Not yet. We’ll be announcing something soon though. So, stay tuned and thanks for being patient.
basis needs to hurry! a very similar product named “alpha” is being released in november!