Messy Jurno
Helps people cultivate self-awareness and discover patterns via intentional journaling.
Trigger
During the endless COVID-19 lockdowns, I suffered from mental health downtimes alone at home. I tried to write down a one-sentence journal to summarize my day for 2 months and discovered that I felt happy when I met friends even with a social distance.
“In-person social time” was the simple answer buried under thoughts and feelings. I wonder how much journaling would help people raise self-awareness if we could intentionally convert thoughts and feelings into self-discoveries.
Discovery
The research started with understanding the negative impacts of COVID-19 on mental health, as it is the most urgent and severe problem.
According to The Economist, October 11, 2021 issue “Covid-19 has led to a sharp increase in depression and anxiety”, we have 28% more cases of depression and 26% more cases of anxiety compared to pre-COVID time. And “Women fared worse than men.”
I then sought out the common ground between journaling, mental health and self-awareness as the product position. Journaling is one of the most effective ways to organize thoughts and improve mental health. With intentions, people can reflect on their stories and raise self-awareness. Like our muscles, it takes time to form the habit to optimize the benefits.
Problem Space
How may we help people cultivate self-awareness and discover patterns for a happier life via intentional journaling?
Research
User Interviews
To better validate my hypothesis, I booked 8 friends aged between 27-36 years old from different industries for the user interview.
8 out of 8 of them had experienced frustration and anxiety within the 48 hours; 7 out of 8 of them had journaled before for the 3 main purposes:
Organize and collect ideas
Express thoughts and feelings to the safe outlet
Log discoveries for personal development
Competitor Audit
I tested 30+ similar products in the market - both physical and digital - to learn about their onboarding, UIs, user journeys and features in comparison to my product hypothesis. Journaling is a very popular topic but none of them have combined journaling, self-awareness and mental health together.
Takeaways
Through the research, I collected takeaways as the design baseline and to narrow down the product focus to specific untouched painpoints by the competitors.
Design Principles
Mindfulness
Insert CBT mindfulness practices seamlessly into the journaling process to better engage users with their mind, body and behaviour.
Convenience
Prioritize an easy user journey that provides simple interfaces and all the latest tools to help users conveniently express and capture moments in life.
Insights
Leverage the digital space to empower users in converting journal entries to analytical insights for personal growth.
Product Ideation
The whole user journey includes “before, during and after” with four main sections to innovate and reimagine the experience.
Before
Home is the first screen users see when launch the app. I want the experience to be welcoming, personal and engaging like arriving at a hotel lobby with warm greetings.
During
The quick mindfulness check-in is the new feature I want to implement in the journaling process. It cannot be distracting, intrusive or require too many taps to finish.
After
The growth section provides a holistic view for users to not only easier view their journal entries, but also engage with analytical insights to understand their entries better.
UI Evolvement (selected)
Home Screen
Letting the user set up their own wallpapers is the most intuitive and personal solution to the home screen.
I went through a few options that are worth exploring for the edge cases:
Arts + health check-ins
Arts + daily self-affirmation quotes
Last mood check indicator
Day streak
Mood Check Screen
The mood check screen went through an iterative process to be more accessible and more cohesive to meet heuristic requirements, such as:
More accessible typography choice
More accessible graphics
Consistent colour options from the design system
Users can identify mood options based on the title, graphics and the associated shapes.
Hi-fi Designs and Features
Personalized Space
Users can set up custom wallpapers on the home screen to create a personalized space that brings delights when journaling on the app.
Reimagined Journaling
Start with a mindfulness check-in by categorizing your journal and mood to train our brains to be more aware of the thoughts and feelings.
Follow with an innovative digital journaling experience, supported by voice recording with transcripts, AI-generated personal prompts, photos and location. To capture moments of life from all angles.
Grow From Your Own Words
The “Journal” and “Insights” features provide a holistic view for users to review, reflect and grow via organized data at their own pace.
Effortless journaling for effortless growth.
Usability Test
To figure out potential usability issues and roadblocks, I conducted user testing.
After giving the basic app information to the users, they were assigned to create a new journal entry for a recent memorable event and try out as many features as they could.
The feedback was mostly positive and users expressed interest in downloading, and even replacing their paper journal habits to leverage the infinite digital space.
“The voice recording is super convenient. I can listen to the voice recordings when I want and recognize my mood at that moment.”
Participant 3 - Female 29
“I’d love to categorize my journals and be mindful of my emotions. But do I get any guidance on how to deal with emotions based on my entries?”
Participant 3 - Female 31
Milestones
There are different mood check wellness apps and journal apps in the market, but none of them combine the two and also provide the opportunity to users for growth. Messy Jurno is the first one.
Based on scientific data, we have about 60,000 thoughts per day and 45,000 are repetitive. If we can train ourselves to convert thoughts and feelings into self-awareness and growth, it can lead us to a happier, healthier and more truthful life.
What’s On 2.0
The 1.0 MVP focuses on helping users form a habit of intentional journaling via a reimagined journaling experience. Here are a few potential features that I could see to be part of the product.
AI Assistant
The AI assistant is a unique “messy friend” for each user. It works like a Siri that can respond to users and assist the user to better engage with the app.
Educational Content
As requested by the users during the usability test, this feature can be a part of the homepage to provide accessible and reliable educational content to raise awareness of psychological health. Most importantly, content would be tailored based on users’ journal entries.
Work and Learn
This is the first case study that I developed based on my personal experience. Here are a few things I would do differently next time:
Stay more focused on the problem.
During my brainstorming stage, I did an excessive amount of research on the benefits of journaling and self-awareness, and their relationship with mental health. It distracted me from discovering and defining the “problem” I wanted to solve. Next time I want to stay more engaged and more aware of the “problem”.
Work with more diverse user data.
Given the limited resources, I conducted interviews with my friends who I also see as my target users. If I can, next time I’d love to work with more diverse user data to gain more holistic views of their painpoints and needs.
Presentation
The presentation includes more behind-the-scenes process shots and is available upon request.