How might we make the task of documenting current emotions and corresponding events in real time easier for therapy goers so it gives them evidence to share with their therapist?
IJournal is a web based app that utilizes a DBT skill framework to encourage users to journal their emotional experiences in the moment to access them for later use in solving their interpersonal conflicts.
Button TextTimeline: From Strangers to Live Product in 8 weeks
Tools: Figma, Miro, Maze, Trello, Discord, Zoom, Github, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator
This research took place during the first three weeks of the project. Some aspects of our research ocurred while I was ideating design solutions and wireframing.
Users do not have a quick outlet to document what they’re currently feeling.
User do not have guided resources to help them process what they’re feeling at that moment.
Users do not know how to effectively express how they’re feeling to their spouse, partner, friends or family to solve conflicts in the moment.
Diversifying Research in the Future
We conducted a user survey, and received 29 respondents. We recognize that our pool of participants was smaller than anticipated. It served the purpose for our initial research and gave us insights into a user base for our MVP.
Our initial survey lacked diversity in regards to age, family status, and nationality. We want our product to meet the needs of a diverse population so further research is needed as we develop the product further.
How do our users struggle with mental health?
We discovered that our users were heavily impacted by their mental health and that a large percentage had utilized a mental health provider during their lives.
Mental Health Disorders represented by our respondents
Our users expressed an interest in sharing journals about their struggles with their providers.
This information legitimized our pursuit to build a tool for users to document and share their emotional states and experiences with professionals.
How does mental health impact our user’s relationships?
Our research showed that people’s mental health affects their relationships, regulating emotions, and contributes to interpersonal conflict.
The majority of the respondents had frequent issues with their mental health impacting their relationship and regulating their emotions.
The survey respondents had issues setting boundaries within their relationships and felt that they were negatively impact when connecting with others.
Would users benefit from tracking their emotions and conflicts?
Yes, our users could benefit from being able to keep a record of their emotions during conflicts. 68% of the respondents would have conflicts that could not be solved in the moment and of those 68%, 46% struggled to remember the details when trying to resolve the conflict at a later time.
Why is this important?
Yes, our users could benefit from being able to keep a record of their emotions during conflicts. 68% of the respondents would have conflicts that could not be solved in the moment and of those 68%, 46% struggled to remember the details when trying to resolve the conflict at a later time.
I was interested in finding science based tools that could help solve our problem. I was instantly drawn to the idea of finding a dialectical behavior therapy skill because DBT has been proven to be effective in helping people with borderline personality disorder. Borderline personality disorder is a complex mental health disorder but people that struggle with it often have a hard time with interpersonal relationships and emotional regulation.
We decided to look into Marsha Linehan's skill book for DBT to find an emotional regulation skill that would work well in a journal experience. We decided to use “Check the Facts” skill for our guided journal experience. We wanted our user’s to be able to not just document their emotional experiences but to be able to improve their ability to communicate and regulate their emotions during interpersonal conflicts and this specific skill fit perfectly for our user’s needs.
We decided to look into Marsha Linehan's skill book for DBT to find an emotional regulation skill that would work well in a journal experience.
We decided to use “Check the Facts” skill for our guided journal experience. We wanted our user’s to be able to not just document their emotional experiences but to be able to improve their ability to communicate and regulate their emotions during interpersonal conflicts and this specific skill fit perfectly for our user’s needs.
Based on our target users’ pain points, we knew that we wanted to build a solution that would allow users a way to quickly write about their experiences while also providing a solution that would allow users to be guided during times of interpersonal conflict.
As a part of our research phase, we did a comparative analysis of over ten different mobile and browser-based applications. Three applications stood out above the others: The Dime Game, Coupleness, and DBT Coach. We learned vital things from each app that helped guide our initial design decisions for iJournal.
Best Feature: DBT skill aiming to improve setting boundaries and/or asking for help
Cons: only one skill and no data storage
Price: Free to use
Therapy Focus: The Dime Game is a DBT skill
Best Feature: DBT skills focused, with detailed login. Access to counseling
Cons: skills aren’t guided. They have descriptions of the skill. No way to document your process
Price: $9.49/month or $47.99/two times a year
Therapy Focus: DBT focused
Best Feature: Improving relationship communication and emotional sharing, specifically for couples
Cons: not specific to an event and lack of privacy settings for what you share with a partner
Price: $33 USD/year
Therapy Focus: None
“We usually always resolve issues by talking it out, but I tend to take a long time to gather my thoughts and respond. I'm not very good at expressing myself in the moment, especially during conflict.”-Anonymous
“I have been manipulative in the past and have guilted them into understanding how actions of theirs hurt me. I’ve never really healthily solved a disagreement. I’m either silent on the matter and closed off or wildly emotional and manipulative.”-Anonymous
Throughout the beginning stages of the design process, we were able to schedule four user interviews that we sourced from our survey respondents.
During these interviews we were able to gain more insight on our user’s experiences as well as finding out how an app may be helpful for them.
Users were interested in having a guided version for logging their emotions but also the option for a quick feature to get their thoughts out as fast as possible.
This user insight changed the direction of our design. We included a quick journal feature in the final version of our MVP.
Another important element of our design process was the development of iJournal’s branding. We wanted our users to enjoy a peaceful and calming experience to encourage user’s to relax during these emotional events.
We improved upon these ideals throughout the entire design process from picking a color palette, font face, the copy, and even focusing on improving the fluidity of the logo to make it welcoming.
Blues promote calmness, serenity, and mental balance. Orange to add some warmth.
It was very important to our group to find a color palette that met WCAG 2 accessibility standards while adhering to color psychology principles to find a palette that would promote calmness, serenity, and bring elements of warmth into our user’s experience.
Font Face: Halant and Lustria
The Copy: inviting, friendly, personable language
Our developer, Saana was key to making sure that the copy for our app was welcoming. We thought about every aspect of the copy from how to create a welcoming landing page that would convert with out CTAs as well as thinking about what a user would see if they typed in a password that doesn’t match.
Another aspect of our product that was iterative was the development of the logo. Our team wanted a logo that was simplistic, recognizable, and calming. This photo below shows the process of our logo development. Our designer, Ash spent time sketching and came to the team with some options. After receiving feedback and doing a preference test, we returned to the drawing table before coming back and fully iterating on the one of the original ideas. Saana and Ash both worked together to come to a final solution for the logo. Saana gave valuable feedback while Ash used Adobe Illustrator to make changes to the design.
fill in
fill in
fill in
fill in
fill in
fill in
fill in
fill in
fill in
fill in
fill in
fill in
fill in
fill in
fill in
fill in
fill in
fill in
This example showcases moving lines around an image. The image also has a 3d rotation on hover.
.png)
