Reminisce: Digital Gratitude Journaling
Hi-fi prototype here
Project Length
8 weeks
My Role
Lead UX Designer in a team of four designers
Methodologies
User Research, Affinity Mapping, Storyboarding, Lo-fi Prototyping, Hi-fi Prototyping, Usability Testing
Tools
Miro, Figma, MAXQDA
Overview
Showing gratitude through journaling, actions, and just verbally helped our group members become more present, build stronger relationships and just feel more connected and positive.
A study published in the Review of Communication found gratitude has a positive impact on our mental and emotional states (optimism is an example) as well as physical health. In addition according to another study done by Portland State University, when people receive more expression of gratitude at work, they reported better sleep, fewer headaches, healthier eating and more satisfaction with their jobs.
Especially amidst a pandemic and unknown situations, practicing gratitude can be beneficial. The study was conducted on working individuals but the proven benefits can be easily translated to other groups from kids, teenagers to older individuals.
Process
The high-level questions I chose to examine are:
How do people keep track of fond memories or things they’re grateful for?
How do they recall or reflect on these things retrospectively?
What are the positives and negatives of these processes?
To answer these questions, we sought to perform qualitative user interviews and participant observation for four undergraduate/graduate students with varying levels of exposure to gratitude.
Research Methods
I formulated the user interview guide which was used to conduct semi-structured user interviews focusing on the the process of expressing gratitude across different media and also observe how the users interacted with their phones to recall fond memories in the form of photos, videos, voice notes or text. From the user research data, we arrived at the following affinity map and key takeaways
Affinity map from the User Interviews and Participant Observations (link to map)
Key Takeaways
Effort & Forgetfulness
Interviewees do not practice gratitude because it takes too much effort and they’re forgetful
Ex/ What prevents you from practicing gratitude by yourself? → “I just don’t think about it.”
Existing gratitude tools/methods either take too much effort (journaling, ‘Vault’) or are too standardized (One Second Per Day)
¾ users prefer to “live in the moment” than to capture it
Photos, Videos, Text
2/4 users said they like this feature because it requires minimal mental and physical effort
3/4 users expressed strong, positive emotional associations with ‘1 year ago today’ and similar mechanisms; specifically, they are moved by the passage of time and how much it has changed them/their lives
4/4 users enjoy the automated, time-based memories/albums that photo apps generate for them (ex/ ‘1 year ago today’)
None of the users pulled up the ‘1 year ago today’ mechanism that they all mentioned
When asked to look for text/words they were fond of, users turned to specific conversations, group chats, their note-taking app, etc., This process was noticeably less organized than looking through photos (4/4 users)
From the need-finding data, we arrived at the following problem statement
“How might we consolidate memories & remind people of what they’re grateful for within one, gamified app?”
The ‘Look Back” feature
For this feature of the app that I designed, user needs identified from user research data are:
Gratitude Gamification - J isn’t very educated in the gratitude journaling end and he also struggles to keep himself engaged in the process. He needs a gamified and easy way to push himself to practice gratitude more regularly.
Memory Selection - NK loves the ‘1 year ago today’ features on Snapchat and Instagram, but not every day holds special significance. NK needs a way to be reminded of ‘1 year ago today’ memories only when they’re significant
Clustering Photos by Emotion - Liz enjoys reflecting on photos to recall memories based on time and people involved, but not by emotion. Liz associates her various memories with specific emotions, and needs a way to assign emotions to photos/memories so that she can sort them by emotion in the future.
Design Goals
Make the process of gratitude journaling simple and habitual with directed prompts
Increase user engagement
Bite-sized journal entry linked to the particular look back will be prompted which reflects as rewards
Ability to share memories with those involved in the same.
User Goals
Look back at the memories and reminisce
Share experiences with friends and family
Earn stars for profile by checking-in with mini journal entry
(P.S. The memories present on the app are curated by the users themselves through a “Swipe through Media” feature that aggregates media from different sources such as the native photos app, social media profiles, etc.,. This feature was taken out of scope for the current iteration)
Paper prototype for the look-back feature
Hi-fi Prototype
Figma Prototype here
The Look-back notification takes users through the pictures, videos or journal entries they made on that day from the past
Usability testing feedback: Included share options directly in the look-back, allowing users to share memories from the notification
Clicking on a person’s icon in the “Your memories with..” section leads to a page with all the memories associated with that person which can also be shared.
Usability testing feedback: Changed the language from “Most Interacted with” to “Your memories with” to prompt users to click on the person’s icon to view more photos with them
A gamified, bite sized journal entry is included at the bottom the Look Back screen which is easily accessible and makes it a habitual process for the user to express gratitude and earn stars for their profile. The check-in enables emotion-tagging so that the users can recall memories in the future (WIP) with emotions.
Usability testing feedback: Users found the overall flow was very smooth and liked the placement of the “Check-in” button close to the thumb
Reflections
This project gave me the chance to take up several roles under the UX umbrella; taking an idea and developing it into a product
Apart from Design responsibilities, I took up project planning duties such as setting up project roadmap, delivery timelines and conducting design review sessions between all the designers involved