Adding a Little Joy to the App

At Noom, every day we’re working hard to make our product better, by adding new features to it, fixing bugs, improving performances, or even by providing better support to our users. No matter which team or department you’re on, improvement is always the biggest goal. We’re always willing to go the extra mile to make a great feature even better.
 
For example, one small feature we have in Noom is motivational messages. Every time the user pull down the list of tasks, a different message pops up to motivate and encourage him or her. The message could be as simple as a smiley face “🙂” or something like “Who moved my Cheese? I did! And replaced it with a low-fat green category alternative!”. We hope this helps our users to stick to their goals and can give them the right encouragement when they need it.
 
But is that enough? Was that the best we can do? Nope. We knew it could be better. But how? One team member Chris (our Creative Director) had a great idea. If you have ever seen any episode of The Simpsons, then you probably remember that they have an opening scene like this (via Giphy):
 
So Chris said: “Let’s try to make it like The Simpsons!” I was then assigned that task. It was not long after I joined Noom and I had very limited experiences in iOS at that time. Nevertheless, I felt it was a very interesting task so I decided to give it a shot. After a few days of investigations and trying, and of course with the help from other Noomers, I finished it. Here is what it looks like in the end:
 
The result? Everyone loves it. I felt so happy and satisfied, not just because I had tackled an interesting and challenging task, but also because I knew how happy our users would feel upon discovering this feature for the first time . If the work I put in can put a smile on a user’s faces whenever they see it, that’s the most priceless reward I could ever receive. After all, that’s what Noom is about – making our users healthier and happier.