ATTUNE

A mobile application designed to bridge the gap between a private journaling experience and a mental health community.

01. OVERVIEW

PROBLEM AND BACKGROUND

The Attune app provides a private journaling experience and community to discuss mental health. Currently, mental health mobile applications offer either a journaling experience or a community experience, but not both simultaneously.

MY ROLE

Lead UX Designer and User Researcher

THE TEAM

Solo

DURATION

80 hours

TOOLS

Figma, Zoom, and G Suite


In an effort to bridge the gap, Attune was created to provide journaling capabilities as well as a community discussion forum related to mental health.


The topic of mental health can be difficult to discuss and address. There are many reasons why individuals are reluctant to discuss issues, but the capability of using an app as a non-invasive way to address issues can be pivotal for those reluctant to be vulnerable.

02. DISCOVERY

COMPETITOR RESEARCH - PROMPTED JOURNAL VS. DAILY HALOHA VS. ALAN MIND

STRENGTHS

  • The applications that provided journaling functionality (Prompted Journal and Alan Mind) offered intuitive journaling functionality.

  • Alan Mind offers a comprehensive approach to mental wellness. Not just journaling, but guided check-ins (think Headspace).

  • There is some form of mood tracking available for Daily Haloha and Alan Mind.

OPPORTUNITIES

  • Develop an application for private journaling with daily prompts and a community to discuss these prompts

  • Provide external mental health articles and resources, as well as guided meditations.

WEAKNESSES

  • There are some features of Alan Mind that can be accessed only by paying.

  • No one of these three applications offers daily journaling with prompts AND the ability to interact with other users.

THREATS

  • Market saturation; a search for "Journaling" in the iOS App Store produces an endless scroll.

  • While not the same product, established meditation applications (Headspace and Calm) could implement journaling and pose a threat.

  • It is not uncommon for users to use the built-in Notes application within their phone.

KEY FINDINGS

USER RESEARCH - USER INTERVIEWS

Over recorded Zoom calls, I interviewed five individuals who make a conscious effort to work on their mental health to learn about their journaling needs, their experiences using applications to journal, and their engagement with mental health communities. In light of these findings, I was able to gain a better understanding of how users may use these apps and what they may expect from them.

FINDING A COMMUNITY IS DIFFICULT

  • Trying to find a mental health group online can be challenging since it is difficult to know where to begin.

APPS FLUCTUATE FROM SIMPLE TO BLOATED

  • The majority of journaling apps are either simple or feature-rich and bloated.

OPTIONAL JOURNAL PROMPTS

  • Though journaling prompts are useful, being forced to use them is not ideal since journaling is typically an unstructured and off-the-cuff activity.

KEY FINDINGS

USER RESEARCH - USER SURVEYS

As part of my research, I conducted a user survey with 20 participants in order to gain a better understanding of their experiences and validate my solution.

50%

Consider mood tracking and easy access to previous entries to be strengths of their current journaling system/application.

52%

View the lack of access to mental health forums as a negative.

40%

View the lack of guided journal prompts as a negative aspect

60%

Journal as needed while the other journal daily.

KEY FINDINGS FROM PRACTITIONERS

60%

Do not use a guided journal prompt while the others do.

20%

Use a dedicated journaling app.

40% use their default notes app to journal.

20% use a pen and paper to journal.

68%

Prefer a Reddit-style forum interface to discuss mental health issues.


It was imperative that users had a simple application to journal with and an easy method of accessing prior entries. In addition, users were open to having a forum to discuss mental health issues, with a Reddit-style interface being preferred.


USER RESEARCH - USER PERSONAS

Based on my research insights, I developed two personas that represent the different types of possible Attune users, as well as their expectations, motivations, and frustrations:

  • 1 female user who would use the app's entire functionality, including journaling and forums.

  • 1 male user who would use only the journaling features more casually.

ABOUT LANA

Lana is a data scientist who resides in a major city. As an adult in her second corporate job, she finds journaling (as needed) to be a valuable tool for engaging herself and caring for her mental health.

DEMOGRAPHICS

  • Age: 25 years old

  • Occupation: Data Scientist

  • Gender: Female

  • Technical Ability: Proficient

MOTIVATIONS

  • As a working adult transitioning from college life to a 9-5 job, Lana has experienced ups and downs balancing her personal and career development.

  • She hopes to be able to mitigate her "off-days" by journaling her thoughts so she can cope more efficiently.

  • Additionally to journaling, a strong support system, and personal counseling, she also hopes to find another outlet to discuss her mental health in order to connect with other people who share similar concerns.

GOALS

  • Needs a simple application that tracks journal entries and provides an option to respond to journal entries.

  • Needs to be able to reference previous journal entries easily.

  • Needs to participate in a forum similar to Reddit to discuss mental health topics by adding new threads or responding to existing ones.

  • Needs to be able to create an account on the forum.

FRUSTRATIONS

  • It is common for journaling apps to require the use of daily prompts; however, on some days she just wants to write whatever comes to mind.

  • There are some apps that are larger in scale and have other tools in addition to journaling, which can result in a clunky user experience.

ABOUT STEVE

Steve is a 30-year-old public accountant living just outside a major city. As a man, he was reluctant to discuss his mental health. However,ever, journaling seems to be a helpful place to begin addressing the slow spin of mental issues he has been dealing with over the past couple of years.

DEMOGRAPHICS

  • Age: 30 years old

  • Occupation: Public Accountant

  • Gender: Male

  • Technical Ability: Competent

MOTIVATIONS

  • Growing up in an environment where talking about mental health was stigmatized, Steve realized late in his adulthood that he lacked the tools to cope with life's setbacks and disappointments.

  • While professional counseling is something he would like to explore, he wants to begin directly addressing his mental health with journaling instead.

GOALS

  • Needs a simple journal entry tracking application with optional journal entries to respond to.

  • Needs to be able to reference previous journal entries easily.

FRUSTRATIONS

  • Since addressing his mental health is a cognitively demanding process, he would rather just have a journal with prompts.

03. INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

USER STORIES

With the users’ concerns in mind, the following user stories were prioritized:

  1. As a user, I want to be given optional daily mental health-related prompts to journal with.

  2. As a user I want be able to reference past days’ journal entries easily, so I can review my entries as time goes on and reflect on my journaling progress.

  3. As a user, I want access to a mental health-related Reddit-like forum interface and be able to create new discussion threads, add comments, and reply to existing comment chains to connect with a like-minded community.

  4. As a user, I want to be able to create an account to be able to post in this forum.

USER FLOWS

In order to visualize how my interface would be used to accomplish the tasks identified in my user stories, I created user flows. These flow concepts assisted me in understanding the type of visual hierarchy I would need to create and how all the elements relate to each other.

SITE MAP

To visualize how my proposed functionality would be organized, I created a Site Map. The Settings module is only for reference, since it was not included in the MVP.

04. DESIGN PROCESS

SKETCHES

I sketched early concepts of what the different forms of the app might look like when completing the user stories in order to get my ideas down on paper.

I then created a digital version of the low fidelity wireframes:

ALTERNATE DESIGN PATHS CONSIDERED

❌ I considered making "Today's Entry" and "Past Entries" the same form. The combination of them proved to be too cluttered from casual testing with peers and did not align with the Information Architecture that I had in mind.

✅ This iteration appears more similar to the final version. The "Today's Entry" is a separate form from the "Past Entries."

USABILITY TESTING

A total of six participants were tested on the four user stories and onboarding. In each user story/objective, 3-5 tasks were assigned to each user.

User Story 1:

As a user, I want to be given optional daily mental health-related prompts to journal with.

  • Save a journal entry for today using an app-generated journal prompt.

  • Save a journal for today using your own title/journal prompt.

User Story 2:

As a user I want be able to reference past days’ journal entries easily, so I can review my entries as time goes on and reflect on my journaling progress.

  • Show me how you would access past journal entries.

User Story 3:

As a user, I want access to a mental health-related Reddit-like forum interface and be able to create new discussion threads, add comments, and reply to existing comment chains to connect with a like-minded community.

  • Show me how you would make a new thread in the community forum.

  • Show me how you would add a new comment to an existing forum thread.

  • Show me how you would reply to an existing comment thread in an existing forum post.

User Story 4:

As a user, I want to be able to create an account to be able to post in this forum.

  • Show me how you would create an account.

50%

Could not intuitively create a new account.

USABILITY TESTING - KEY FINDINGS

100%

Were able to locate “Today’s Entry” form and generate an app-generated writing prompt.

100%

Were able to locate the “Past Entries” form.

100%

Were able to access the community forum.

100%

Were able to add a new forum post.

100%

Were able to add a new comment to an existing post.

100%

Were able to reply to an existing comment chain.

PRIORITY REVISIONS

Revision #1:

The first iteration simply required a user's e-mail address and if it did not match an existing user, took you to a password creation form. Some users have reported potential ambiguity, especially for new users.

  • If the user is not already logged in, future iterations will indicate where to create an account.

Revision #2:

Username and password requirements were not explicitly stated in the account creation form during Onboarding.

  • The following is an example of how the form might look when insufficient credentials are entered.

05. FINAL DESIGNS

Clickable Prototype

06. REFLECTIONS + NEXT STEPS

FINAL THOUGHTS

As always, the UX process provides an opportunity to challenge one's assumptions. For example, my experience with onboarding in other apps is rudimentary, but I was prompted to make sure steps to register for an account or create a password requirements in Attune were clear.

Additionally, I was reminded not to lose sight of my target audience. The problems my potential customers face was important for me to be aware of, while acknowledging that I am unlikely to be a member of that audience myself.

FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

  • Add Mood Tracking functionality.

  • Add Formatting Options to journal entries (Bold, Italicize, Underline, etc) 

  • Add Settings:

    • Journaling Notifications and Reminders

    • Account Management

    • 2 Factor Authentication

    • Data Export

CHALLENGES

Complexity It proved that for every additional piece of functionality, more planning, research, and prototyping was required. The project itself seemed pretty simple with only journaling and a forum functionality at its core.

Defining the MVP The functionality of the forum and the different combinations of how a user might access the forum, post a thread, or reply to a comment makes me want to make sure that for future projects, the MVP is clearly defined, as well as ensuring that each piece of functionality that is necessary in the MVP is thoroughly examined, since the functionality of a forum required a significant amount of effort.

Thanks for reading!