Jot
Role: UX Design & UX Research
2024
Problem Overview: Mental health struggles have been a prevalent problem amongst young adults for a very long time. The National Library of Medicine reports that one in five young adults has symptoms of depression and anxiety. The NLM also discovered through a small study of 40 people diagnosed with major depressive disorder that after journaling they had significant reductions in depression immediately after writing.
Day One
Research Process
First my teammate and I wanted get a thorough understanding of the impacts of journaling on mental health, specifically focusing on our target audience of young adults.
One study conducted by the National Library of Medicine using 70 adults with various medical conditions found that completing 15-min of online journaling showed decreases in mental distress and increases in well-being.
Based on Client self-reports: Expressive writing journalism lowered blood pressure, bettered moods, caused fewer depressive and avoidance symptoms, and less time spend in the hospital. (Baikie & Wilhelm, 2005)
Journaling can promote mindful acceptance which is an effective way of our freeing our minds to move forward from emotional traumas and hardships. (Forsyth and Eifert, 2016)
Interview Results
Due to time constraints on this project I was only able to gather interview insights from one participant; Nonetheless is was helpful when gathering insight about the impacts of journaling
Participant 01:
Participant 01 journals 3-4 times a week, every week
Participant 01 stated that journaling helped them get their emotions out on paper in a healthier way and made them feel less alone. They felt like it was talking to someone without actually having to feel the vulnerability of sharing their traumas with another person. Overall they would recommend journaling to their peers.
Competitive Analysis:
Apple's Journal App
Apple’s journal app is an aesthetic way to reflect on your day. You can capture and write the details of everyday moments and special events using photos, videos, audio recordings, places, and more
Journaling Suggestions:
Pros: Gives you suggestions based on photos and activities that are monitored by your phone like workouts
Cons: Lacks prompts focused on mental health so it defeats the purpose of journaling to improve mental health
Ability to add photos, videos, and locations:
Pros: Makes the journal feel very personal and gives it a scrapbook feel
Cons: The user’s focus is now on making the journal pretty rather than diving into their emotions and exploring their mental health
Keep your journal secure:
Pros: Makes the user feel protected and upholds their privacy
Cons: N/A
Day Two
Wireframes and Design Choices
When beginning the initial wireframes, My teammate and I had a very rough- emphasis on the very- brainstorming session about features we’d want to include in our design. Here’s a glimpse into our brains:
After our ROUGH brainstorming we began designing our screen mockups. Due to the time constraint we felt it best to skip past digital or paper wireframes and go straight into final product while talking it through and tweaking design choices along the way. Our first step was finding a color palette that we felt represented the calm and relaxing energy of our app.
We chose this color palette because the pastel blue, purple, and pinks represent a calm energy that remains marketably on trend.
We went with the word jot as the app name because of it’s short but clever cadence. We felt it rolled off the tongue really well. We also wanted to incorporate some sort of emotion into the branding, so we added the smiling face to make the users feel welcome when they download the app.
Some of the big design choices we made when creating our final prototypes:
Instilled a habit mindset in the user through consistent daily push notifications encourages them to log in everyday
Created a mood check before and after journaling to establish a measurement system for the user so that they can monitor their progress
make the user feel accomplished through progress tracking
Created an interactive calendar where the user can see their journaling progress for the day, and the before and after of their mood while journaling; this gives the user tangible evidence of their mental health progress through journaling
Day Three
SUBMIT!
Takeaways:
The biggest lesson I learned during this project was TIME MANAGEMENT. Since we were working within a 72 hour time frame, we had to allocate our time very intentionally. My teammate and I followed the design process, while also modifying it to suit our projects needs. I learned that it is important to adapt when working on a tight deadline.