JOUR.ME

Timeline: January - April 2024

Tools: Figma, Miro, Google Slides & Adobe Illustrator

Group Members: Joey Zhang, Michelle Liu, Alicia Solomon, Casper Lo, Sabina Rafay and Cindy Le

Background

During the last semester of my undergraduate degree, we were presented with a capstone course (GBDA 402 Capstone Course: Cross-Cultural Digital Business). Our capstone course was presented by SunLife and the theme this year was Closing the gender gap in mental health care. Sun Life's purpose is to help Canadians achieve lifetime financial security and to lead healthier lives. But the playing field is not level. Biological, social, and systemic factors contribute to a gender gap - specifically with respect to women's health, and how women experience mental health care navigation and chronic condition management.

Studies indicate that working-aged women aged 25-44 (including those who identify as 2S/LGBTQIA+) are at an increased risk of experiencing mental health conditions, including:

Generalized anxiety
Depression
Substance use/abuse
ADHD
Sleep conditions (i.e. insomnia)

To help address this gap, we need to apply a gender-based lens to reimagine the care journey and design of support services for women experiencing these conditions.

For our capstone project, my main role was the Design Lead. Using my strengths, I wanted to work in the area I can do my very best in. As a design lead, I worked on many aspects of the project which required a visual display. This included the logo, mascot, colour palette and design system.

Identifying the Problem

The identified problem statement lies in the time management challenges faced by working second-generation immigrant women aged 30-40. Juggling work and personal responsibilities exacerbates mental health issues like generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). These women experience a compounded pressure to maintain a strong work-life balance, often stemming from cultural expectations, familial responsibilities, and workplace demands. The impact manifests in generational trauma and guilt, lost family bonding time, heightened stress levels and lack of self-care. Consequently, addressing this issue requires tailored strategies that acknowledge the unique cultural and social contexts these women navigate, empowering them to manage their time effectively and alleviate the burden of anxiety and mental health challenges.

User Flow

Here is our user flow. The user flow is organized to better our designing and user experience for our solution.

Design Process

For the visual design of our project, we decided to go for a menial design and calm colour scheme. This colour scheme would prompt wellbeing and help our users to feel relaxed as our colours wouldn’t overwhelm them and their emotions. We found research that has shown the colours white, grey, purple, red, pink, and yellow are known to be calming colours.

We chose to have a mascot to distinguish us from the other teams in our classes. While brainstorming for our mascot, we didn’t want something generic like other mascots but also wanted something simple and unique. That is when we came up with Emochi! Emochi was inspired by Carebears, Avatar the Last Airbender and an onigiri. Now it may seem like these three inspirational things are super random but in the end, we love our little creation. Emochi is a name that combines two words “emotions” and “mochi”. It may look very simple but we heard many positive feedback we got from others. Many stated how it was such a simple character but has so many humanized characteristics to it. Like humans, Emochi has different emotional faces to showcase it to our users.

Mid-fidelity Frames before feedback changes

Colour Palette

Emochi Sketches

Different Emochi Faces/Emotions

Solution

Our solution is Jour.Me! Jour.me, a dual journaling app for second-generation immigrant working women aged 30-40. Our app aims to provide a much-needed outlet for stress relief and mental health support in the face of work-life balance challenges and generalized anxiety disorder. In our prototype, users review our privacy policy before creating an account.

We found that journaling is associated with decreasing mental stress and anxiety. A 2018 study conducted by Pennsylvania State University involving 70 adults found that online journaling for 12 weeks significantly reduced their anxiety. Our first journaling method is the Thought Diary. Research revealed that thought diaries are essential to cognitive behavioral therapy, which guides people to recontextualize their thoughts. In our app, we have six guided topics with descriptions to help users understand each theme. Users then select an Emochi that represents their current emotional state, write about their situation, identify distortions, and reframe their thoughts. This helps our users recognize their behavioral patterns and how they are influenced by them.

For those wanting a more flexible outlet, our second journaling approach, Freeform Writing, has users write all their thoughts down in a 5 to 15 minute timeframe, allowing them to express themselves without worrying about grammar or structure. Users' entries are backed up on a cloud-based privacy server to ensure data security and accessibility. Based on usability testing results, our participants enjoyed having two different journaling options, each tailored to their convenience and schedule as working mothers. Journaling categories such as family time or self-care allow our target demographic to write about their specific concerns. The toggle feature in our dashboard allows users to easily switch between both methods.

We implemented a mood tracker that displays users' inputted moods in the form of our Emochi from each journal entry with time slots.The mood tracker in the thought diary is part of cognitive behavioral therapy so users gain insight into their moods and learn how to resolve them.For the freeform journal however, users record their mood before writing so they can find patterns between their mood inputs and the context of their entries later on.

In our dashboard, users can now see how their emotions change throughout the day and spot potential triggers. The dashboard lets users see their mood on a timetable, add three tags to describe their entry, and access past journal entries. Lastly, the journaling method toggle was moved from settings to the dashboard because our users found it difficult to find before

For further insights on our project including the business model, previous iterations and research please contact my email which can be found at the footer!

Prototype

Click the image below to view our prototype

Extra Photos

Please enjoy these photos from our capstone showcase!