👀 TL;DR
eMotion — your low-effort emotion journal
eMotion is a micro-journaling app designed to help users track their emotions and daily activities with ease. By using push notifications, it gently reminds users to log their feelings with just a few taps.
This app was an apprenticeship project with the UCSD Design Lab and supervised by public health experts for UC San Diego Health's Return to Learn program, aiming to ensure a safe transition back to in-person activities while prioritizing the health of students, faculty, and staff post-COVID-19.
I led the design team and the final prototype is pitched to members of the California Public Health Board and was considered to be the top among 4 teams.
❓ CONTEXT
A challenging return to normal.
The transition back to campus after the pandemic posed significant mental health challenges due to prolonged isolation and remote learning. Anxiety, depression, burnout rising as people prepared to return to campus (source).
❓ CHALLENGE
Struggling to navigate life's unexpected turbulence
Coping with unexpected turbulence presents a significant challenge because it disrupts both emotional stability and healthy routines. During such time, individuals often prioritize on how to cope with the turbulence over emotional well-being.
Problems include…
Lack of emotional documentation — individuals struggle to track their emotions consistently when experiencing turbulence.
Disrupted routines and overlooked emotional data — unexpected events disrupt healthy habits, making it difficult to regain balance.
Difficulty identifying unhealthy patterns — Without reflection, individuals fail to recognize the link between their emotions and emerging unhealthy behaviors.
✨ HIGHLIGHT
Introducing eMotion
Through the app, individuals can…
easily log emotions in real time — it allows individuals to log more authentic and accurate data.
identify trends between emotions and activities — the trends inspire healthier habits and recommend personalized goals.
stay motivated and accountable on their goals — it helps individuals track progress and stay motivated through actionable steps.
Let's take a step back and walk through the process.
📚 RESEARCH + INSIGHTS
Semi-Structured Interviews: Uncovering User Challenges
We conducted 12 semi-structured ad-hoc interviews in neighborhoods along the Blue Line trolley route, from northern SD to the southern border, to ensure a diverse range of interviewees and capture a variety of perspectives from different communities.
From the interviews, we found out people struggled to maintain their healthy routines and daily happiness when experiencing unexpected "turbulence".
OPPORTUNITIES
Identify Our Goals
Our main goals were to help individuals…
Effortlessly track emotions and events — to capture more accurate representations of their daily emotions.
Understand the connections between emotions and activities — to create actionable goals that help users do more of what makes them feel good.
stay accountable on their goals — by tracking their progress and reinforcing the importance of the goals.
SERVICE BLUEPRINT
Designing a Service, not a product.
I incorporated a service blueprint to ensure a smooth user experience. By mapping out each interaction, I could identify potential friction points and optimize the flow.
A crucial element we identified was the role of timely, non-intrusive push notifications that remind users to log their moods; these notifications help sustain engagement.
USER TESTING + ITERATION
Things we changed based on feedback
Feedback #1 — Confusion around using a line chart to display emotions over time. We intended to display the average daily mood and compare it to other periods to show improvement or decline, but the representation wasn’t as clear as we hoped.
Iteration #1 — We replaced the line chart with a bar chart that displays the frequency of positive and negative associations; this change provides a clearer, more intuitive view of the trends.
Feedback #2 — Mentors believed that we over-complicated things since we assign positive, negative, and neutral sentiments to the associations between emotions and various activities.
Iteration #2 — To simplify, we streamlined the sentiment categories by focusing only on positive and negative trends, making it easier for users to understand and engage with the insights.
HIGH-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
Final Prototype!
IMPACT
Harnessing Emotion Data for Positive Impact
eMotion stands out by leveraging emotion data to drive meaningful change. Unlike other journaling apps, it goes beyond simple mood tracking by analyzing emotional patterns and providing personalized, actionable goals.
This approach was praised by a member of the California Public Health Board for its innovation. By transforming overlooked emotional data into insights, eMotion empowers users to focus on what truly makes them happy, creating lasting positive impact on their emotional well-being
REFLECTION
Gratitude for Mentorship
This is my first time working with doctors and public health experts. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my mentors for their guidance and support throughout this project. Their deep expertise in both design and public health greatly enriched the development of eMotion, offering invaluable insights that shaped the app’s direction. Their support not only improved the app but also contributed significantly to my growth as a designer.
Designing for Effortless Engagement — From user research, we discovered that user initiative is key to the long-term success of apps like eMotion and more accurate recommendations. This insight taught me that for users to engage consistently, the app must seamlessly integrate into their daily lives. By minimizing disruption and creating experiences that feel natural and effortless, we can motivate users to interact more regularly, ensuring better retention and overall effectiveness.
Adapting to Spontaneous Feedback — Conducting ad-hoc interviews taught me the value of spontaneous feedback. This flexible approach allowed me to quickly respond to users’ thoughts and adjust my questions on the spot. It reinforced the importance of being agile and open to unexpected insights.
The Importance of Emotion Data — A crucial takeaway from this project was realizing how often people overlook the value of emotion data. This project taught me that integrating emotion data into the design can unlock a deeper understanding of user behavior, guiding more personalized and impactful features. By giving emotion data the same priority as other user metrics, we can create more holistic, user-centered designs that address both practical and emotional needs.
If I were given more time, I would do more rounds of user testing to evaluate the performance of eMotion and explore more advanced emotion data analytics, incorporating artificial intelligence to deliver even deeper insights and more personalized recommendations.