Around 20% of the world’s children and adolescents have a mental health condition, with suicide the second leading cause of death among 15-29-year-olds. Approximately one in five people in post-conflict settings have a mental health condition.

Encourage people to write daily gratitude lists and track their daily moods while helping them stay connected with their friends and families mental health and well-being to stay on track with their lives.

I created a survey of open-ended questions and sent them out via social media and to people in real life.

The majority of survey participants, accounting for 62%, fell within the 19-30 age bracket. Around 36% were aged between 31-50, while the remaining 2% comprised individuals either under 18 or over 50 years old.

Out of the responses received, only 37% individuals reported having tried mood tracking apps. Among these respondents, only 14% of individuals found a mood tracking app that they found enjoyable. Despite the fact that most survey participants had not experimented with mood tracking apps, 43% of them actively engage in journaling and 80% said they would be interested in seeing how people they care about are feeling.

From this data I able to produce 3 varying personas who have different goals and frustrations within the journaling process and current apps.

From these persona’s I was able to depicts a user who faces the challenge of wanting guidance for gratitude journaling while securely being able to check-in with friends to support their mental well-being as well.

Some points I took away from the research study were the following:

• Develop a user-friendly app with an intuitive interface that encourages daily gratitude journaling and mood tracking.
• Incorporate gamification elements, rewards, and reminders to keep users engaged and motivated.
• Provide prompts and guidance for gratitude journaling to help users overcome writer’s block and maintain consistency.
• Implement a secure messaging system within the app to facilitate communication and support among friends and family.
• Offer personalised insights based on mood and gratitude trends to empower users in their well-being journeys.
• Incorporate a user-friendly interface with features like voice-to-text functionality to save time.
• Offer a range of resources within the app, such as articles, podcasts, and self-care tips.
• Incorporate features that allow users to set personal goals, track progress, and a to-do list
• Include optional anonymity features that allow users to control their privacy while still benefiting from social interaction.

• Only universal mood tracking app on the market with a friends section to check-in with and send daily affirmations to
• Daily affirmations
• Prompts for writers block for journalling
• To-do list
• Daily challenges
• Profile to overview your entries history

• No questionnaire assessments for suggested quotes
• Lack of browsing for scientific data on mental-health and how to improve
• Articles, videos and podcasts based on daily moods
• Simple analytical data based on mood tracked daily

• Connecting with friends and being able to check-in and have input in their lives again
• No feeling like your introducing in people lives as they’ve purposely shared their feelings with you
• Mental-health well-being platform to support and improve lives
• To-do lists and note taking, to bring all journaling aspects into one place
• Prompt shuffler to prevent writers block

• People not sharing their feelings with friends through fear
• Current apps on the market implementing a community section
• Users dropping off as they forget to journal over time

My rough designs based on my user research previously completed helped me lay out a foundation to see how my screens could look and where I could use patterns to create an aesthetic clean design. From here I was able to effectively adjust my designs to focus on what the users actually wanted using my user persona’s.

I chose a calming pastel theme through out the whole design, including a sky blue with lilac with a more contrasting pink/orange for high impact areas. Colour theory says, “since pastel colours are less saturated, they are often associated with calming and peaceful vibes. Pastel colours have a soft look that is soothing and easier on the eyes.”

Some screens I completed removed some features, including the reaction pop up on your friends posts as I saw it as overall being too crowded and confusing for users. As well as people in my survey said they’d rather message their friends to talk about feelings rather than send an emoji to them which is closed ended in terms of conversation.

I optimised the user interface design overview by adhering to Hicks’ Law, which posits that the more choices and complexities presented, the longer users tend to take in making decisions.

This design law can be seen on the mood picker page where I had emojis to pick a mood as well as emojis to pick an emotion, which are relatively the same thing and the complexity isn’t needed when the user can just type out their whole hearted feelings anyway.

So from my user research I found my target audience to be mainly females who use or would like to use a journalling app. The majority were young and cared about seeings friends and families mentally well-being all in one place too. They required a secure in app chat system to discuss mental health and how it was affecting each other. Some liked a gamification element to stay engaged while others preferred prompts to overcome writers block. 

So from here I created a very visually pleasing design with a soft pastel approach which uses the Law of Proximity with all relating elements and objects being within a different coloured box section. Gestalt Law of Continuity can be seen throughout the whole design as the colours used for journalling entries continue to be seen in that coloured box in the friends and profile page making it more identifiable within fields of text. 

Gamification was introduced with a flame entries streak counter to encourage daily entries. There is also a challenge sections which changes everyday to spark new ideas in users and to think outside of the norm of their everyday lives. 

My design is very user centred with guided around arrows to encourage click paths, the animated emoji mood picking page brings an interactive side to the design. There is a user feedback pop up notification found when users have completed a journal entry, this is key to gaining users trust and letting them know they’re on the right path. There is always an incorporated speech-to-text functionality to assist users with visual impairments using their keyboard. This feature inputs text in the journalling text boxes.

Overall during the process of research and development of the Stay in Touch app, I feel I stuck true to my users wants while producing something that has a smooth and responsive design output. I bridged the need for personal journalling along with sharing and connecting with friends and family over their mental health. The app has a sense for users to feel personal progression and exploration while being easy on the eyes with no distractions. 

With more user testings I would love to iterate another design sprint so see what my users like and what they would like to see be added. 

In order to validate the effectiveness of my latest prototype, I plan to conduct usability studies. By doing this, I aim to confirm whether the user pain points that were previously identified have been effectively addressed. This comprehensive approach will provide valuable insights and empower me to make informed decisions, ultimately improving the app’s functionality and meeting the evolving needs of its users.

My next design sprint would include a visual cue for users to see what posts they have shared and to un-share them as well as a delete function. I’d like to research if a shuffle button would be appropriate within the quotes page and if reactions on friends posts are needed or not. Within the profile page I would like to test if built in relevant articles and podcasts are useful and what users think about reading more in-depth about scientific data on mental-wellbeing and how to improve it.