“Feel (A mental health application)”

👏 Design Strategist (UX, Strategy, Product, Facilitation)) at IBM — Emoti-Con Judge

I think this project is incredibly thoughtful - great job. I love that you considered multiple ways to help address mental health solutions through the app.

👏 Senior Product Manager at Etsy — Emoti-Con Judge

Thanks for your thoughtful work on this project, great job! Mental health is such an important topic and as you point now, now because of Covid more than ever do we all need a little help. The colors and imagery you used in your designs conveyed joy, and the diversity of your feature set felt like a true reaction of the different kinds of help different kinds of people will need at different times. Sometimes a variety of large number of features can overwhelm someone new to an app -- what would be the one you would encourage someone to start with? How might you expect someone to move between different features? Feel felt designed to be part of a healthy daily routine. You may want to look at apps like Headspace or Calm encourage daily meditation routines for inspiration on how to build something you expect folks to check in with as a part of their routine, as opposed to an app like Google Maps, which folks check when they have a specific need. Congratulations for the skillful tackling of an important topic!

👏 Teaching Artist at Pockets Change — Emoti-Con Judge

This project is super relevant, thoughtfully realized, and easy to navigate in its design. The colors and fonts I find both calming and uplifting which are great affects to have for a mental health app. I have a particular soft spot for the quotes you chose and am curious what other quotes you would put in that section; also your process for selecting them.... maybe you could have a place where users could submit quotes that have inspired them to possibly be put into that section? ...I love that the app focuses not just on seeking support through community and professionals but also provides creative and physical activities along with music to shift people's moods. Arts, music, and exercise are such important things to engage with for mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health. It's awesome that you make them accessible right in the app! It's a very holistic approach to mental health......... One suggestion with the music section that I think would enhance the affect of it would be to have various different moods of music and have that listed in the area where it currently says "Sample Song 1" etc. Some suggestions are "Chill Sample", "Energetic Sample", "Moody Sample" etc, but I'm sure you can come up with the ones that feel relevant to both you and your target audience. This way users can know the vibe they are about to engage with so they can choose the musical adventure that would best serve them in that moment. As a music lover and music artist I know that folks can be VERY sensitive to the vibe of a song which can both elevate or frustrate....... Overall I think this is wonderful! Be proud of your work and I wish you all the best with this and future projects!

👏 Software Engineering Tech Lead at Google — Emoti-Con Judge

You have taken on a really challenging problem of mental health. It's clear that you've put a lot of thought into the various ways an app like this could help someone through a bad day and to connect with a support network of friends and professionals. Your presentation was really well done. It was clear and I also got a sense of the passion you each have for the topic area.

Something that might be interesting to consider for the app would be a way to collect feedback from the users. For example, they could use the app to indicate their mood at various times of the day. Perhaps the app could keep track of trends and reveal insights to the user, such as whether their mood really does vary with the weather, or if they tend to struggle certain days of the week or times of the day. Also, users could indicate which of the activities helped them. This could be used to improve the app for all users (finding the most inspiring quotes, songs, images, etc) as well as for customizing it for the user, to give them more of what works for them. Because someone who is depressed may not want to reach out for help, especially when things are really bad, perhaps the app could assist them with that. For example, it could notify your friends when you indicate that you aren't doing well. You've put some great ideas into this initial design and it seems like there are so many ways you could gradually build on that as the app evolves.