Still Life
Still Life — An intentional flow of meditations guiding you through a cosmic journey into Stillness and true presence.
Long story short
The now #1 app for Stillness meditation came to STRV for a redesign and refactoring. But after we exposed hidden flaws in the foundation, STRV ended up creating a brand new, amplified experience — with a stunning aesthetic and rich gamification features.
Still Life Highlights
— Has a 4.9 rating on the App Store
— Featured on ABC News and BuzzFeed
— See Still Life’s Clutch review of STRV (★5.0)
— Read about the founders’ journey
Services / Deliverables
— Product Management
— Product Design
— Frontend Engineering
— Backend Engineering
— QA
About STILL LIFE
The Still Life “Journey” of meditations guides users towards a still mind through a daily exploration of growth, habits, love and more. In contrast with other practices, Still Life is built on simplicity and gamification in the form of uniquely themed, beautifully designed planets.
The 4.9 iOS rating stands on reviews highlighting the app’s ability to enhance productivity, boost energy and relieve both insomnia and anxiety. The result is a clear, emotionally balanced mind — the calm “you” that remains focused in all aspects of life.
Challenge
When they came to STRV, the Still Life team had an initial build ready from a previous agency but needed a strategic partner to take over due to missed deadlines and unreliable delivery.
The original plan was to finalize the app by tackling the redesign, a switch to React Native, UI updates and tweaks to the code. But our engineers’ inspection of the backend exposed critical issues that had to be addressed before moving forward — for example, certain parts of the business logic had never been implemented by the former team. Ultimately, we brought in our product team, frontend, backend and QA to get rid of technical debt and build a durable product.
Solution
As a deadline-oriented client with no technical expertise, Still Life has been vocal about appreciating our timeliness and clear communication through frequent check-ins. This trust played an immense role in transforming Still Life into the app we know today.
Gamification via a space exploration theme is a large part of our final design and has proven to be the right call; daily user engagement and user retention have consistently shown strong numbers following the release. As users move through various-themed planets, they unlock a vibrant world of meditation tracks. This makes for a journey that, apart from being a joy to gamify through diverse rewards, also offers easy navigation — something most meditation apps struggle with.
Before going live with the new and improved version, we had a beta test group and set up various internal metrics to rate the performance post-release. The app has hit all of them, and our collaboration with Still Life has a long to-do list on which we’ll be fervently working side by side for the foreseeable future.
They really understood the vision and goals we were trying to attain. Their communication has been one of their greatest strengths.
