OVERVIEW 

Designed wireframes and basic prototype for an app built to share powerful, practical tools to combat the effects of anxiety.

CHALLENGES   

• Designing a custom app that addressed a friend’s specific pain points

• Creating a viable, interactive flow that could address a variety of anxiety issues

• 1 week duration

MY ROLE

I did research and interviews, mind-mapping, brainstorming, ideation, wireframe sketches, as well as creating a working prototype. 

Getting started, I knew I needed to better understand my friend.  Through the interview process, it became clear to me that his most painful issue was a generalized experience of anxiety.

 I realized my many years of studying yoga, meditation and personal development could come in handy to offer a powerful solution.

I set to work brainstorming, mind mapping, and sketching some rough ideations and proto-wireframes.  I realized the app would need to be simple and powerful - but also intuitive and effortless, to help address any excess stress.

I decided to center the app around 3 different, but uniquely powerful stress and anxiety reducing techniques I had found especially effective with my years of training: EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), The Work of Byron Katie, and the Release Technique.

My friend Bo had expressed how planning and order were effective stress-reducers for him, so I decided a daily calendar should also be central to the experience.

Sketching storyboards, I realized the app could be most potent when implemented in the morning, before the day’s stresses began.  This helped me prioritize and organize the features.

Bo also mentioned that meditation had been effective, but that he’d had difficulty keeping a regular schedule.  Mediation is one of the easiest, low-impact activities that has been scientifically shown to have incredibly powerful, long-term beneficial effects.  I had also realized this in my own years of experience.

Thus, I felt, meditation should be a central component of the app, and I placed it front and center.  But because Bo is a busy man, the sitting times would be changeable.  Each daily sit would be accompanied by a soft guided voice and soothing, natural background audio and video - such as a peaceful beach, or mountain lake.

Bo had told me he particularly liked an app called ‘Reporter’ that tracked all the day’s activities.  This inspired me to create a regular check-in notification to gauge the user’s mood. 

If good or 'ok', it simply sends you back to the main calendar.  But if the mood reported is below 30%, the 3 main stress techniques would be brought forward, allowing the user to deal with the negative/stressful feelings immediately.  

These tools would also be available at any time in an easily accessible, navigational pop out menu in the lower left corner.

After creating some user flows, I began extensive color sketches, implementing some concepts from color theory to optimize harmony and peaceful experience.  I then integrated these into the POP mobile app for prototyping. and went back to Bo for some experiential user testing.

He seemed quite happy with the experience overall, but offered some great insights which I incorporated.

TAKEAWAYs 

I very much enjoyed creating this app, not least because it gave me an opportunity to share some of my years of healing knowledge in a way I felt could be very practical and useful.  I hope to continue to build on this in the future.

That said, I would love to have more time to iterate and test. Due to the short week scope, I had little time to conduct more than a cursory experience test. 

Also, focusing more fully on the concept of MVP (minimum viable product), I would likely begin with just focusing on a single feature through the full development, with the possibility of building from there in future iterations.