In the blink of an eye, life altering events may occur. Imagine how different life changes over the course of a year. An increasing number of people also struggle with mental health issues. Journaling has been a proven method to help relieve some of these issues as it serves as an outlet for one's emotions. Due to a lack of motivation, people might not be consistent with their journaling habits. This app aims to provide motivation for filling out journal entries by introducing a "time capsule" element. It's also a great way to measure one's growth by comparing their present self to their self from a year prior.
We are targeting people who are stressed and/or struggle with their mental health. These people need a healthy outlet to let out their feelings and emotions. Not everyone has a support system whom they can contact when they need to vent.
Students in high school and college are especially a demographic we want to target, as they have more growth to be measured and have several responsibilities weighing on them. They may be juggling school with work, familial responsibilities, and/or trying to maintain a social life. These students also have more milestones that they'd like to document (graduations, getting their licenses, etc.)
I created a survey and provided it to 10 different people, all aged 19-20. Some were students, some only had jobs, and others were both students and working. The questions I asked them were:
Several journaling apps already exist. I looked at 5 of them and compared their features. The apps are listed along the Y-axis. The most formidable competitor seems to be Penzu, yet none of these apps have this time capsule element.
Name: Chloe Garcia
Age: 19 years old
Goals: To become less stressed and have more peace of mind, as well as free time.
About Me: Chloe is a 19 year old girl who attends Northwestern University full-time as a biochemistry major, while also balancing a part-time job as a barista. She is the oldest child in her family and has 2 younger siblings. Both of her parents work full-time jobs and often ask her to take care of her younger siblings. She is often stressed, trying to balance classes, homework, work, and her family. Chloe is unable to speak to a mental health professional due to taboo in her family regarding therapy. She is not a huge writer but doesn't mind doing it, and used to keep a journal when she was a child.
Look Back is an app in which users are prompted to write a journal entry every day before their bedtime. Upon signing up, they are asked to provide their bedtime. This will allow them to receive notifications 20 minutes before going to sleep as a reminder to write their journal entry. After writing their journal entry, users rate the day they had on a scale of 1-10 and select an emoji which embodies how they feel or how their day went. After this is completed, the entry can be edited up to 24 hours after. Once 24 hours pass, the entry becomes locked and becomes part of a vault. This vault holds every entry "hostage" -- they are unable to be read until exactly one year has passed since it was written. For example, if
I write a journal entry on December 20th, 2023, I cannot read or access it again until December 20th, 2024.
In addition to writing journal entries, users are supplemented with a "notepad" to jot down their feelings throughout the day, or events that have occurred. This feature exists to prevent forgetting possibly important details when writing their Daily Entry.
Please click here to view Look Back's journey map on Figma.
On the third screen (of the low-fidelity wireframe), the user being tested was confused on what to do. My intent with that screen was that it would disappear on its own, but to prevent any confusion, I added the "Yes" and "No" options. I also included the "Home" and "Back" buttons on some of the screens to ease navigation. I lastly updated the whole visual style to be more of a solid wireframe, as the first set was incredibly basic and low-fidelity. With this update I included new screens, such as the notepad, themes, and settings.
I removed the "themes" feature as users were unhappy the whole visual style of the app didn't actually change upon attempting to change it. Due to time constraints, I could not create multiple variations of each screen to fit each theme. This caused me to remove the feature as a whole (although I deem this to be for the better as the app already has a fun color scheme going on).
As can be seen, I made a drastic update to the visual style of the app. I was unhappy with the first version - it was not the vision I had when I decided to create this app. As part of the update, I added a navigation bar. Having "Home" and "Back" buttons are simply not enough to mitigate navigation issues. I also designed iconography that incorporates some dimension; the app doesn't look very "flat". The brush strokes* also made it look like stationary, which a journal sort of is. Overall, the app is now embodying the "fun" vibes I had intended when I began to work on it.
If I were to go back and redo this from the start, I would add features like encryption and provide more customization options. As I said before, I removed the "themes" feature. Even though I think it is for thebetter, users may dislike the colors and want a different scheme. I would then successfully implement the "themes" feature. I'd also like to add a feature where videos can be added to entries.
Creating a "friends" and "streak" system is also interesting. If a user is consistent with their entries, they will have an ongoing streak that canbe customized and displayed on their profile (if they wish). This might motivate their friends to be consistent with their entries as well.
