Gamification Meets Journaling

Most of us are too familiar with the entry, “Sorry, I haven’t written in a while!”. Due to this, I dedicated a UX case study on imbedding gamification into the sometimes tedious task of journaling.

Overview

Mindful Monkey is a journaling app that allows users to briefly remember their day with guided questions and example answers. Users are able to sum up their mood in a variety of icons. To offer an incentive to keep the user coming back, users are awarded bananas to feed their monkey when they are consistent with entries, among other tasks. If they forget to submit a daily entry, their monkey will be sad and frail looking.

The Challenge

I think a lot of people can agree that consistent journaling can be tedious and a chore. We want the benefits of journaling, such as clearing our mind or being able to look back at our habits, but it always seems to slip our minds. I wanted to use this user frustration as fuel for Mindful Monkey.

With an attention to implementing gamification into the app by creating an incentive for users to continue journaling, making sure reflections were easily accessible, and the UI was cohesive; users can count on this app for a quality experience.

Research

I researched the other journaling applications to see what the market already had, what was working, and what wasn’t by reading customer reviews.

I took a look at Reflectly, Day One Journal, and Jour.

Improvements to be made: Users want more incentive for consistent journaling and new questions of the day.

Improvements to be made: Range of moods too limited and too few reflecting opportunities.

Improvements to be made:

Users commented on lack of scroll function and wanted better UI for “On this day” function.

Analyze & Ideate

The questions and answers that motivated this study were:

How might we incentivize users to regularly journal?

• By proving ease of mind when doing so, making guided journal entries and example answers to put users on the right path

How might we present interface in an easy to understand and easy to adopt for the user

• Use simple texts and have a simple and intuitive onboarding.

How might we allow users to express themselves

• Have a range of icons to account for human’s complex range of emotions

How might we allow users to cope with a bad day versus a good day

• Provide tips and resources to help them overcome bad feelings. Make good days special and allow users to remember what made it good

User Stories

User stories were developed to better design for needs and goals of a journaling app. I came up with the following:

As a journal writer, I need to be able to destress by writing out my thoughts and feelings from the day briefly.

As a journal writer, I need to be able to look back on my progress, emotionally and see my dedication in entries be worth it.

As a journal writer, I need advice on how to overcome a bad day and how to keep a healthy mindset.

As a journal writer, I need help guiding my thoughts on entries so I don’t have to spend too much time trying to remember details of the day.

Prototyping 📲

Paper Prototyping

The first set of screens

The second set of screens

High fidelity designs

This poll helps designers understand the motives of users

Users can choose up to 2 feelings.

Users have to narrow down what makes them feel the way they do

Users have to write a paragraph or 2 to connect their feelings with potential reasons.

This question of the day helps the user be more introspective on their life.

An additional question of the day

Users should feel accomplished after their first milestone on the app.

The entries page allows users to compose a new entry, reflect on their week, and be motivated by a quote.

This explore page allows users to read articles that will inspire them.

Users can check-in for a daily entry as well as writing journal entries that will help with practicing empathy & gratitude

Bananas are rewarded so the user can feed the monkey and incentivize entries.

This will occur when the user has been neglecting writing daily entries.

Users can add photos to their entries & speak into the microphone for ease

Users can reflect on each month’s moods and click on them individually to view their entries for that day.

Conclusion & Lessons Learned 👌

Making this app was gave me a lot of insight on the benefits a quality journaling app can give to someone. I wanted to try my hand at introducing gamification to the app by introducing an animal as the logo and bananas to make the monkey happy. Similar to an old school tamagotchi, which got a user to feel emotionally attached to the toy and felt greater accomplishment when the animal was happy, I wanted to create that desire for users in this setting.

I learned that paper prototypes should be drawn out and thrown out a bunch of times to reach one that satisfies your liking because it is so cheap and time efficient before getting it pixel perfect.

My goal is to explore more ways to incorporate gamification in existing applications and tasks to encourage the user to engage in the app and feel great using it.

Thank you for reading until the end! Connect with me on LinkedIn to discuss this case study or any other design topics!