Concept
The Aqua Project
For many people, there is a great deal of purpose and self-worth tied to our work. We often face new challenges, which can turn into learning opportunities that foster growth and change. As we commit ourselves to meaningful endeavours in the workplace, how might we make sure that we're actively tracking our thoughts and moods to help promote and maintain good mental health?
The Challenge:
How could this practice be made more accessible for people in the workplace? For example, many find journaling a good way to expressively examine and document what thoughts might occupy them at any given time, both good and bad. What are some ways in which people can document their thoughts without it feeling too repetitive or task-based, or share things that they've learned with those around them? How might this tool offer guidance or support, without feeling obtrusive?
My tasks: Concept, User experience, Visual design, Illustrations
The process
This is the process I followed on this project, where I spent equal amount of time exploring the problem statement, researching and ideating before starting the design assets for wireframes, visuals and prototype.
Product Brief
How might we make sure that we're actively tracking our thoughts and moods to help promote and maintain good mental health?
Why do people record their thoughts and feelings?
Not only does regular writing make you feel good, it helps you re-live the events you experienced in a safe environment where you can process them without fear or stress. According to PsychCentral, keeping a journal can help you: Clarify your thoughts and feelings. Get to know yourself better. Keeping a journal helps you create order when your world feels like it's in chaos. You get to know yourself by revealing your most private fears, thoughts, and feelings. Look at your writing time as personal relaxation time. It's a time when you can de-stress and wind down.
The ultimate user’s goal: to maintain or achieve good mental health.
The Approach
My first step was to to explore the problem space and define what was the problem we were solving from customer perspective and considering our target audience.
During my research I learned that record feelings and thoughts is not the end goal, but a practice, a process that helps people used to help them to know themselves better, to help process their thoughts and feelings, making it a practice to relax and think.
Target audience
I also took a very inclusive approach to define our target audience. I considered anyone that would be willing to use a mobile app to help them to achieve or maintain their mental, first time users or people that have used similar products before. Also people that are mobile savvy or not.
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People that never tried mental health apps before.
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Also, those that already use journaling as a practice, through apps or on paper.
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Anyone willing to use a mobile device, tech savvy and non tech savvy, to help them achieve and maintain good mental health.
Considerations
As the project brief stated, the solution should be accessible at the workplace, so. I considered the context in which our customers would be using the product.
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When talking about mental health, people may be afraid of being judged, they prefer dealing with with privately.
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Typing and keeping a large journal on mobile can be a difficult and a tiring task.
Context
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At the workplace, privacy may be a concern, so the product should offer option to do “silent” tasks or use headphones.
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The product should not be intrusive, disturbing co-workers. E.g. noise.
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Taking a break at the office may be challenging, some people may only have short breaks.
Opportunities
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Mobile apps provide a private space to write and look for help and is accessible anywhere.
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Customers may not know where to start, so having a guided quick start to promote mental health may be a great help.
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Modern technologies allow capturing voice as an alternative of writing and typing, if customers feel comfortable with that. E.g. there are not many people around, they can do it at home.
The 3 Pillars
I identified 3 main pillars that would guide the following ideation phase using design thinking methods:
First, from customer’s perspective, the design should be compassionate and forgiving. As we are designing a product to promote mental health, the product should minimize learning curve, should avoid cognitive overload, etc. This aspect of the product defining our first design principle, it should be simple, pleasant and easy to use.
The second pillar was driven by context. Being at a workplace, our customers could not have all the time in the world to fill up a long journal, but have breaks during work hours or lunch time. Also their could be surrounded by people and privacy could be a concern. Our second principle stated the tasks should be achievable in a short amount of time and discreet. Users could potentially use headphones, for instance.
The third pillar was defined by using a mobile device. Mobile users don’t appreciate tasks that are super complex and time consuming unless the product is engaging like a game. Also there are advantages using a mobile device, you can take it with you anywhere and it’s also provides you a private space. People can get distracted easily when using a mobile app. The third principle I have defined was that the product should be mobile friendly - designed for a mobile experience.
The Experience
During my research and ideation, I used a combined approach from Design Thinking methodology: a simplified version of empathy map and experience journey to identify potential pain points from customer experience and identify opportunities to overcome those issues. I used a potential persona and envisioned the experience we were proposing for this project.
Water promotes mental health
I also researched mental health apps and wanted to differentiate the experience, so I looked at opportunities to innovate and elevate the experience such as art therapy, sentiment analyzer through words and I came across the researched about how water promotes mental health. So, I researched about water therapy, how looking at water and aquariums make people happy. That helped me to find an inspiration and the approach to match water therapy with journaling.
For centuries, water has been used to treat people with mental health problems. But not always in the same way. When mental illness was seen in primarily supernatural terms, water was seen as a spiritual purifier.
Now scientists are quantifying the positive cognitive and physical effects of water. It turns out that living by coasts leads to an improved sense of physical health and well-being, for example. And contact with water induces a meditative state that makes us happier, healthier, calmer, more creative, and more capable of awe.
Beach also changes people’s moods. When it comes to why, exactly, the beach gets you feeling all Zen, there are a few factors at play, says Richard Shuster, PsyD, clinical psychologist and host of The Daily Helping podcast.
“The color blue has been found by an overwhelming amount of people to be associated with feelings of calm and peace,” says Shuster. “Staring at the ocean actually changes our brain waves’ frequency and puts us into a mild meditative state.” A study published in the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s journal even found that blue is associated with a boost of creativity.
Some references:
https://globalnews.ca/news/4320204/lake-water-mental-health-blue-space/
Aquariums
The hypothesis used on the solution considers combining journalling, water and pet therapy (aquarium), so customers could record their thoughts and associate their feelings as pets, water creatures added to an aquarium. We assumed this approach would be less repetitive and more engaging. There are also researches about the therapeutical effects of looking at aquariums.
https://www.thesprucepets.com/therapeutic-health-benefits-of-aquariums-2921378
Breathing and meditation
I also learned about other established universal practices that promote mental health such as breathing techniques and meditation. Practices that can be done anywhere, using the amount of time you have available, making it a potential extension of the product feature.
The approach used in this project considers a combination of tools that help people at a workplace to take a quick break to record their feelings and thoughts through journaling, mediation and guided breathing exercises, tasks that are easy and simple to complete in a short break. The journal is presented as note pad, inviting customers to get started, so they can complete in a few minutes, as opposed to showing long pages of a book yet to be completed.
The wireframes below represent the scenarios: main feature - journal, mood tracker, guided meditation and breathing lessons
Wireframes
Launching the app and recording a thought, associated with a feeling.
Customers will find the modules on the home screen, where the primary task is to add a mood/thought (+). The additional modules are mood history, guided breathing exercises and meditation.
Tracking mood and thoughts
Mood tracker is presented as a large fish tank as a timeline, where customers can explore. Negative entries are presented closer to the bottom of the aquarium and positive entries near the surface.
Breathing Lesson
Breathing exercises for stress relief are presented through animation, along with 3 presets to choose from following the standard counts to inhale, hold breathing and exhale.
Meditation
The meditation module is presented through an animation of a journey through water, like swimming or scuba diving (inspired by drone images). The calming images complement the guided meditation playlist with using water and ocean sounds. The playlist management is to be defined later, e.g. Spotify playlist for the Aqua app, considering sounds with a minimum duration for meditation, e.g. 15 min or continuous sounds, letting the user to pause anytime.
Visual Design
The color palette uses warmer tones and not too much saturation, to promote enough contrast and visual interest. At the same time provide a calming, pleasant feeling. Note: the smooth, animations were not completed yet and are an essential part of the visual design. Like an aquarium, items move slowly. The overall approach for visual design and language should not display indications we are judging the customers, their entries can positive or negative.
Boosting positivity
The product uses a friendly theme and a bit of sense of humour to promote positivity. Even when customers record sadness and anger, the images presented in the app display subtle friendly tone, as saying, “I know, it will pass, it will be okay. Can you try to smile?”
Final Thoughts
When it comes to mental health, handling the problems with positivity and sense of humour has proven as key to overcome difficulties. This project takes this approach on adding positivity on every aspect of the design. To promote engagement, I considered fast and simple tasks (reducing cognitive overload) to help customers to achieve their goals: to maintain and promote mental health. One key aspect not represented here are the soothing animations that complement the visuals and interaction. And the next step would be to evaluate the design with potential customers and validate this hypothesis.