Paperspace

During my IMM course at Sheridan College, we were given an open-ended brief to create an app from conception to shipment. I partnered up with two other students, and we came up with an innovative product we were very passionate about.

Role

UX Designer

Client

IMM SHERIDAN COLLEGE PROGRAM

Platform

Web

Timeline

4 months

An interactive journal web app that tracks users emotions based off their written entries.

What problems were we trying to solve?

Our college program was extremely fast-paced and highly demanding, which made most of the students burn out and exhausted. During one of our brainstorming sessions, we all had a mental breakdown, which ironically gave us the idea of designing a simple app around practicing wellness and mindfulness. This led us to think about journaling. We decided to identify the main problems people have when it comes to journaling by conducting interviews with our 16 classmates as well 12 early stage working professionals. These were the insights:

View Interview questions

72% are intimidated by the idea of journalling

Don't have journaling skills

A lot of people we interviewed in our initial research are scared of journaling. The blank sheet of paper is intimidating; they don’t know what to write or how long they should write for.

26% Journal consistently

Struggle to journal consistently

People struggle to journal daily because life gets in the way or they are not in the right headspace or environment to do it as often, e.t.c.

81% prefer physical journalling

Physical vs digital journaling

From our user interviews, a lot of people prefer journaling on paper because digital can get complicated and overwhelming very quickly.

Who are we designing for?

Students and recent graduates

College/university recent graduates, Early level professionals

Wellness enthusiasts

People who take active steps to align their minds, spirit and body

UX Insights

View Interview Questions

No time or motivation

I'm always tired after work, and I just want to rest on the weekends; I really don't have the time or the motivation to journal daily.

Jessie J.

Industrial Designer

Too many sub-features

I prefer pen and paper. Most of the apps have too many sub-features, which I find very distracting. I just need a clean space to write and express myself.

Keith M.

Painting Major

How do you journal?

Journaling sounds really cool, but anytime I see the blank screen, I literally go blank.

Marie C.

Business Major

As a mode of reflection

For me, journaling is a way to put out my negative emotions and have a better understanding of my trigger points.

Tómas S.

Data analyst

Words vs pictures

I'm more of a visual person, but I would prefer to do it in a more visual format.

Oge O.

Photographer

I'm old school, It flows better on pen and paper

I feel more comfortable expressing my innermost thoughts on pen and paper without getting distracted by constant electronic notifications.

Emily G.

Architect

User Persona

Key Metrics

Once we identified the problems, we decided to state our KPIs to determine what would make the experience impactful and successful.

Teach/guide users new to journalling

Reduce the level of intimidation people face when journaling for the first time.

Create an incentive to inspire people to journal consistently

Create a visual cue or incentive that would inspire people to journal more and see this as an entry point to practising mindfulness, wellness, and inexpensive self-care.

Maximize the feeling of journalling physically in a digital space

Design a journal app that mimics the simplicity of writing on pen and paper but projects the advantages of being in the digital space.

UX Approach

Lo-fi Sketches

How might we make journaling a fun and interactive experience?

The Solution

Guided prompts to kickstart journaling

The guided prompts feature is available for users who are new to or intimidated by journaling.

Colour-coded mood tracker

Users can quickly glance at an overview of their moods, which is generated from the users' written entries categorised daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly.

Clean, simple, and easy to use, like writing on paper

Streamlined features emphasize and translate the simplicity people have when they journal on physical pen and paper. The art direction was also inspired to emphasize the experience of journaling "physically in a digital space".

View Figma Prototype

What were the outcomes of designing this experience?

Once we completed our MVP, we tested the figma prototype among our other 16 classmates as well as 12 other entry-level professionals with whom we had spoken earlier during our initial research. This had the following outcome:

83% found mood tracker made them journal more often

Mood tracker boosted consistency

Users said having an interactive feature where one can see a visual interpretation of their emotions was a great incentive to journal every day.

14% found the experience inaccessible

Accessibility needs to be improved

Users who were partially or completely blind were not as delighted with the mood tracker because the visual contrast was very low and the app's driving force was mostly based on colours. We need to make it WCAG-compliant.

90% Guided prompts was helpful for journal beginners

Guided prompts allows everyone to journal

Users who are new to journaling found the guided prompts an intuitive feature to teach beginners how to journal. Users also said it was like "a person checking up on you".

2.0 Aspirations

If we had more time or we ever decided to continue this product, we would really like to add the following features to the experience:

Speech to text

Desktop UI

Thank you