Milestone One Requirements:

• Description of your app including your app’s inspiration and goal.
• Define your app’s intended audience. Who will be using your app? What problem is your app solving for them?
• Do some research — do similar apps exist? If so, how will yours be better or different?
• Research enough to know that what you’re proposing is possible.
• Where will you get any content needed for your app? This could include text, formulas, whatever your app requires.
• Include a digital version of your paper prototype

Description, Inspiration and Goal

I want to create an easy mood tracker / journaling app that does not take any time out of the user’s day to maintain. One inspiration for me was a tiny little gratitude journal that I keep, and the other big inspiration was how much joy I would get from asking the kids at the summer camp I worked at what their “popsicle and poopsicle” (highlight and lowlight) of the day was.

So, I am combining these two very small practices to make my app. My goal is to help the user get into the habit of quick reflection on the day, and finding at least one positive to balance out anything negative that may be going on.

Audience – who and why?

I want to make my mood tracker app for young people (most likely busy) that are trying to improve their self reflection and self care practices. A lot of my peers (myself included) operate day by day without really stopping to think about what is necessarily stressing them out, or what amazing things are going on that they may be taking for granted. However I do realize that realistically I can’t magically get everyone into the habit of being emotionally in-tune and journaling, so I want my app to be a low-maintenance, low-level commitment to improving the well-being of the user.

Paper Prototype:

Here is a photo of my paper prototype. (Note: this is my assumption of the user interaction, after I do some user testing with my prototype I will have a better idea of what the flow should be / what information I’m missing). I think as I move forward with interaction design I will have to hold myself accountable to considering the 11 design principles we talked about earlier in the class from Apple’s WWDC.

My interaction: when the user opens the app and the landing page contains boxes to save reflections on the day: mood, highlight, lowlight, and something they’re looking forward to. Once they hit saved that information will be stored in a monthly calendar that will show the trends of moods over time by color. In the bottom right corner there is a “gratitude” button, where the user can tap to open a text box and write something that happened during the day that they are grateful for. This information also gets saved to the month. If the user taps on the calendar in the left corner, they will see a larger view of it, with a list of things they’ve been grateful for during the month.

Related Apps

I looked into other leading mood tracker apps, which definitely exist. Most of them seem to be targeted towards individuals that are already involved in therapy of some kind, or are actively working to live with a specific mental health issue. My app will differ because it will not be using any labels (eg anxiety, depression, bipolar) to influence users’ responses.

My app relates more to mindfulness, which is a healthy practice for everyone regardless of clinical mental health diagnoses. Also, the low time commitment it will take to use my app makes it even more appealing to a user trying to get into self-care.

Is It Possible? Where Will Content Come From?

Based on existing apps, I believe my app is possible. The content will come from the user, and in order to make the color-coded trend calendar, I will reference a list of moods to fill the calendar. It may be hard for me to learn to store all the user responses, but again based on the fact that other journaling apps exist I should be able to find something that works for me.

One thing that I have to keep in mind is the user’s ability to edit, and their ability to intuitively tell how to navigate the information saved in the app. (Example, expanding the calendar, viewing trends and old responses, getting back to the landing page, editing information they already saved)

Digital Draft of Prototype

 

Here is my initial thought for color scheme, spacing, etc. I am looking forward to getting feedback on usability of my design, and what people are confused about.