CONTEXT
Overview
I participated in CreateSC, USC’s annual UI/UX designathon, held from April 8th to April 9th, 2023. My team and I created “:Daysy,” an emotion journaling app specifically designed for children with Autism where we became finalists in the competition.
DURATION
MY ROLE
TEAM
3 Designers
TOOLS
PROBLEM
How might we help those with commmunication disorders express themselves to increase their sense of community and belonging?
The theme for the Designathon was “Expressive Dialogue” with the challenge of:
“Design a mobile app that will help those with communication disorders express themselves through creative digital mediums that can further help them build their sense of community and belonging.”
SOLUTION
:Daysy helps children with Autism express themselves in a simple but fun and engaging way.
“:Daysy” is a journaling app specifically designed to support children with Autism to encourage self-expression, communication, self-reflection, and emotional regulation. By tracking daily emotions and memories through daily rotating prompts and fun activities, ":Daysy" helps users share their feelings in an engaging and accessible way.
UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM
Expressive Dialogue can represent various ways to communicate ideas or thoughts with others.
When we received the prompt “Expressive Dialogue,” we started by brainstorming what Expressive Dialogue meant to us. We did this to understand the problem and identify existing ways of how people express themselves. Expressive Dialogue consists of various forms of communication including writing, art, images, and beyond. It is any means of conveying thoughts, whether for self-expression or interpersonal communication.
Next, we thought about preexisting tools that help individuals with communication disorders express themselves. With this in mind, I thought of the emotion charts that children with Autism use to help them learn emotions.
Children with Autism often have difficulty recognizing and understanding emotions, which can make expressing their feelings challenging. Using these potential target users, we started conducting user research.
An example of an emotion chart.
USER RESEARCH
Understanding individuals with Autism better.
Before brainstorming or designing we wanted to understand individuals with Autism better to make sure we didn’t make any assumptions about our target audience. Drawing on my background from HuskyADAPT, an organization that specializes in inclusive play technology, I was familiar with conducting user research with various needs experts. I started to compile questions we wanted to ask during our interview maintaining an open perspective, and focusing on questions around communication.
INTERVIEW
It's important to keep things simple and understand that everyone is different.
Pictures of our interview with Kan.
1.
Keep it Simple - Complex text can pose a challenge for individuals with Autism when it comes to comprehension and reading, which is why it is important to keep things simple.
2.
Everyone is different - During our interview with Kan, he emphasized that his sisters were at different points on the Autism spectrum, and that each had their own distinct set of challenges and needs.
SECONDARY RESEARCH
Incorporating emotion charts.
“What is Autism | Written by Autistic Person” by FreeMedEducation.
After our interview with Kan, we continued researching by looking into secondary sources such as articles and YouTube documentaries to understand what Autism is and what it may look like for others.
Using the insight from our interview and secondary sources, we decided that there might be a way to incorporate the concept of emotion charts. With feedback from Kan, he mentioned that having such a chart would be beneficial to his sisters.
Thus, we explored the idea of an emotion journaling app.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
There are no journaling apps catered specifically for the needs of individuals with Autism.
Daylio
Notion
Notes App
After conducting a competitive analysis, we discovered that many journaling and note taking apps like Daylio were confusing and difficult to use for users with Autism. These apps had overwhelming number of features making the app hard to navigate. On the other hand, other apps such as Notion and the Notes app were boring and unengaging for the user. Although there are apps that support children with Autism, the ones we found were either very out-of-date or did not cater specifically towards emotion journaling.
RE-FRAMING THE DESIGN QUESTION
How might we help children with Autism express and share their own emotions in a simple but engaging way?
IDEATION
Exploring the idea of an emotion based journaling app.
We started brainstorming on FigJam to get all our ideas down in one space. Using sticky notes and hand drawn wireframes, we explored various ideas for an emotion journaling app making sure to take our user research into consideration in our designs.
USER FLOW
Making the app simple but engaging and fun.
We wanted to maintain a simple routine journaling practice. With rotating self-reflection prompts, encouraging features, and fun activities such as drawing and image recognition, our app makes journaling fun while helping individuals with Autism practice sharing their emotions. Additionally, considering that individuals with Autism have different needs, users have the freedom to skip activities they don't want to do and have an option to share their journal with others.
SKETCHING/WIREFRAMING
Displaying user's data like a physical journal.
Following our user flow, we started to mock up what some of the screens could look like. Taking inspiration from a physical bullet journal, we wanted our users to be able to reflect on past entries. We explored various formats of displaying the user’s data whether it was a weekly view, monthly view, or yearly view. Furthermore, we integrated gamification features like streaks to encourage consistent daily journal entry completion, aligning with the familiar practice seen in bullet journaling.
Some of our hand drawn wireframes.
STYLE GUIDE
Keeping it clean and simple.
BRANDING
What is makes up :Daysy?
ITERATIONS
Changes we made along the way.
As we designed, we continuously thought back to our user research and interview with Kan.
1.
2.
Removing contractions. We took into consideration that some individuals with Autism may have difficulty comprehending contractions. By removing contractions, we aimed to simplify the language and make the app more accessible for individuals with Autism.
FINAL DESIGN
:Daysy
“:Daysy,” is a journaling app specifically designed to support children with Autism to encourage self-expression, communication, self-reflection, and emotional regulation. By tracking daily emotions and memories through daily rotating prompts and fun activities, ":Daysy" helps users share their feelings in an engaging and accessible way. Meet our final product, “:Daysy”!
Calendar view.
VIEW YOUR LIFE IN COLORS
ACCOUNT SETTINGS
Account settings.
Fun little features we included.
OTHER FEATURES
