Mindfulness and body section

I finally found time to finish up the "Mindfulness and Body" section of the app!

I already had a diagram to go on, which I created much earlier in the semester (Fig 1).  It was a big help in speeding the research process for this stage up a bit, as it had been a while since I had looked at anything body-related in terms of mindfulness benefits.

I split the body section into three subsections, having found links between some of the benefits and parts of the body or their conditions (you can probably tell from the diagram above).  Just noticed that all of the breadcrumbs say "Disease Management", which was originally the title of the body landing page.  This will be changed to be "Home> Body" as seen in Figure 2.

Users will be taken into modal windows for each subsection, which they can come out of at any time.  As I said in the post about changing to modal windows , this means the navigation is not so complicated and users should find it easier to get back to main sections should they wish.

Heart, lungs and blood windows

Covers heart disease, HIV, flu, blood pressure.

I'm debating moving this one to "Allergies and Conditions" as the flu is an illness, but on the other hand, the "Allergies…" subsection has the highest number of modal windows at present.  "Heart Disease" could also arguably go into that section, but because it touches on general heart health I am keeping it in this section for now. 

Allergies and conditions

Covers rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, psoriasis.

The psoriasis one was a difficult one to do because I wasn't sure how I could present it.  I decided to show the patches of flaky skin on the face of the character, rather than having an arm or body part where it would not be so nice to look at.  When that was finished, I realised I wanted to show the difference it made after meditation, so deleted the patches on half of the face.  The contrast wasn't very obvious as the details are small, so I made half of the circle blue to highlight the "before and after" effect.  This was also used in the "Mindfulness Reduces Stress" window to show the difference one can feel from practising mindfulness.  Because this page references mindful meditation, I put an option to go to the meditation excise at the bottom, both to aid the exploratory navigation style I wanted users to experience and to re-enforce the emphasis on the meditation. 

Pain and stress 

This one is slightly different - there is an introductory window about the effects of stress and why mindfulness helps which comes before the more specific facts.  I thought this was relevant, because most of the conditions that were helped by mindfulness practice were linked to stress and aggravated by it.  It was important to highlight that the link between mindfulness and stress-reduction was what caused pain-related and stress-induced conditions to get better.  Had I launched straight into the "Immune System" page, for example, the user might not have understood why mindfulness can help them get better.

Overall I feel like I have given a well-rounded view of benefits, even if I have framed them from an illness/condition treating point of view (which I suppose mindfulness is anyway).