Ponder
An app created to nurture a place where young Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC) can learn, feel inspired, and engage in self-expression.
Type: Independent Project
Duration: March to August 2022 (6 months)
Role: UX/UI Designer
Tools: Figma
Overview
Wellness is a common topic which has ancient roots. The use of preventative and holistic care can be traced back to ancient Eastern civilizations. Through the proliferation of self-care, healthy living, nutrition, and spirituality—to name a few—the wellness movement has been incorporated into the modern Western lifestyle.
Beyond the popularity of the topic, I wanted to explore how this idea be effectively incorporated into our current-day technology to help young adults (18-25), in Canada who are Black, Indigenous, and other Peoples of Colour (BIPOC) begin their wellness journey.
Outline
1. Define & Discover
2. Ideating
3. Building Wireframes
4. Branding & Visuals
5. Final Designs
6. Reflection
1. Define & Discover
Problem Space
Secondary Research
Primary Research
Persona
Experience Map
Problem Space Exploration
The initial problem space was centred around mental health within Canada as
“1 in 5 Canadians experiences a mental illness or addiction problem and by the time Canadians reach 40 years of age, 1 in 2 have—or have had—a mental illness.” (CMAH, 2020).
The research led me to understand more about how to maintain good mental health, leading the topic to also encompass mental wellness due to its focus on preventative care.
Final Problem Space
It is challenging for BIPOC young adults to navigate mental wellness, and finding holistic, culturally responsive and accessible systems to integrate into their lives can be difficult.
Outcome
Ponder is a creative approach to mental wellness where you can discover thoughtful tools to implement in your day-to-day life, express yourself, set goals, and share your journey.
Community
Share in spaces and communities that you want to connect with. Cultivate a sense of belonging and remember you are not alone.
Mindfulness Guide
Connect with yourself and learn different tools and methods along your journey. Make space for your wellness.
Journaling
According to research, journaling can help ease our distress and in the long term, we can expect to cultivate a greater sense of meaning as well as better health.
Vision Board
A visual representation of your goals that can inspire you to stay mindful of your dreams and aspirations.
Constraints
I used these to stay more strategic and methodical throughout my design process and approach.
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Digital spaces aren’t always the best places for healthy/holistic practices, due to the nature of having to stare at a screen
We cannot tell the emotions/headspace of our users, we would have to rely on their input
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People from lower economic backgrounds, BIPOC, and other vulnerable populations have huge barriers of entry to proper mental health resources
There is a lot of ignored mental-health and wellness issues within the BIPOC community that require attention
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Mental health resources are often underfunded and paying for mental health services is extremely expensive.
There is a budget for the research initiative.
I will have limited time on this project.
Assumptions
These are statements that I accepted as true and treated as facts unless shown to be inconsistent with the information provided by research participants.
Anything italicized and with an asterisk was amended.
Minoritized peoples have poorer mental wellness due to a lack of understanding of their lived experiences, thus leading them to feel lost in their journey in mental health and wellness.
To improve mental wellness, access to info/methods to better mental wellness needs to be accessible otherwise (especially those who are financially unstable) will not seek out this care.
Methods to improve mental wellness need to be simple and palatable enough that people can attempt to do them otherwise it will seem out of reach.
*Access to clinical therapy should be made more accessible and would be effective in assisting people with their mental wellness.
Hypothesis
Secondary Research
Key Research that informed the understanding of my problem space.
Pain Points
Competitive Analysis
I looked at the existing solutions in Canada which took on organizations and apps related to Mental Health and Wellness.
I looked into organizations in Canada helping to increase Mental Health Resources and Outreach:
Mental Health Commission of Canada
Canadian Mental Health Association
Kids Help Phone
Wellness Together Canada
There are government sites that offer a variety of online and virtual resources such as:
Apps
There is an Internet-based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (iCBT) that provides digital access to customized modules that can be completed on one’s own time and have also been made available to all Ontarians through MindBeacon.
Other wellness apps that were not Canadian-based but government sites would mention were: Calm, Headspace, Smiling Mind…
Important to Note:
The majority of these resources are free but do not cater to visible minorities.
Interview Themes and Insights
Pain Points
“There is a lot of denial around mental health issues in the South Asian community”
Participant 1
“Well there are things that I wish I had or do have, I just don’t remember when I am struggling”
Participant 3
Motivations
“I keep in touch with my headspace through self-reflection such as journaling and meditation”
Participant 2
“I think the small things make me feel really hopeful, like how the sun was shining through my window while I ate my sweet bread”
Participant 3
Behaviours
“To be honest, I don’t really have a system for maintaining my mental health and well-being”
Participant 2
“I have dabbled in the whole gratitude journaling thing and I think that’s helped turn things around for me”
Participant 1
Main Themes and Insights
I synthesized my information into an affinity map to look for any connections and recurring themes. I also re-checked one of my assumptions.
The chosen theme was: no system in place for mental health and wellness.
This theme was chosen because I felt that it would allow me to look into both gratitude and, mental health and wellness stigma in minority communities.
Because of the chosen theme, I was able to specify the problem space again.
Refining the Problem Space
Why Pivot?
The chosen theme collected from the interviews helped me to specify the problem space as culturally responsive systems are of key importance.
The secondary research informed me that mental health and wellness initiatives on both the public and private levels were not creating spaces catered for BIPOC young adults, especially when considering that children of immigrants have higher rates of depression, illicit drug use and alcohol abuse than their parents (Judith Ince, 2010).
Pivotal Moments
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I believe that creating a way to integrate simple, culturally responsive, and research-based practices for BIPOC peoples will lead to better mental health and well-being.
For the most part, the hypothesis statement held true even after the interviewees but I noticed 2 things of importance:
1. Integrating a mental wellness practice alongside a community or space to share and remind themselves of their journey will lead to better mental health and well-being.
2. Also, recognizing what we already have in our lives is very important to finding joy, and peace.
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One of my previous assumptions:
Access to clinical therapy should be made more accessible and would be effective in assisting people with their mental wellness.
I had to pivot from the topic of clinical therapy for mental health for 3 reasons.
1. Though it can be helpful, it is not accessible to most people due to financial constraints.
2. Making this accessible will not be viable for me within the timeframe provided.
3. I also believe this assumption was inherently solutions-oriented though I have only noticed now after re-visiting.
Now, let’s meet Avni…
Synthesis
Through the information provided in our research, I personified themes and insights into goals, pain points and other attributes to represent the needs of a target demographic, what we call a Persona.
Avni is finishing up her double major in Business and Communications and is in the last term of her studies. The pressures of school, extracurriculars and work have had a noticeable impact on their life…
How and where can we help Avni?
The persona informed the experience map, allowed me to visualize a potential end-to-end experience Avni would go through to accomplish a goal.
This process allows us to conceptualize opportunities, features, and entry points for impactful design.
Here is the scenario:
As a student in the last year of their undergrad, Avni has many responsibilities on. Due to the stress of work, and school ending, coupled with financial constraints she feels overwhelmed and is trying to seek help for mental health and wellness.
Let’s take a closer look…
Here are the opportunities I found, whatever is checked and bolded is what I focused on when making user stories.
Ideating
1. Define & Discover
2. Ideating
3. Building Wireframes
4. Branding & Visuals
5. Final Designs
6. Reflection
Functionality Exploration Through User Stories
The user stories inform us of the common themes/categories for the needs of the user. These common needs are then collected to create an epic. This allowed me to share a high-level view of:
the unifying objective for my first potential course of action in my problem space.
find a means to look into a function that provides a solution to my target demographic.
Out of these 5 Epics I chose 1
Core Epic
Tracking/Creating
The Compelling Narrative
In the interviews, everyone had some form of creative expression that they used to remain present and mindful. Below is a previous participant quote:
"creating happens in the now, and allows us to use our energy to shape our experience"
2. Ideating
Functionality Through User Stories
Task Flow
Sketches
Task Selection Process
I turned my most compelling user story, into the main task flow…
Honing My Focus
The journaling section of the app is the area that I chose to focus on as it tied in well with the user story I chose. Journaling is a mindful activity that some people already have some knowledge or understanding of, and working to see how this could be created seemed like an effective and feasible course of action.
Main Task Flow
As a user, I want to be able to write about how I am feeling so that I can be reflective of my emotions.
From there a general idea for the potential subtasks was developed to help me understand any additional actions the user would go through when trying to complete their main task.
Potential Subtasks
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Add a section on the journal entry screen to allow users to look through journal prompts.
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Make it possible to share journal entries within the app or outside the app.
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Users can be able to take a photo or upload images of their choice.
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Users will have to confirm that they want to delete their entry.
This subtask was amended so that anything they write will automatically
A task flow diagram that visually depicts the user flow logic involved in completing the task at hand:
*I assumed that the user was a returning user that was already logged in.
Sketches
In general, my first set of exploratory sketches were just quick glimpses at what each screen could look like. I wanted to start seeing how the content could be available and ready for the user. I did not go too in-depth with the initial sketches.
In these sketches I started to get an idea for what the Homescreen and Create screen would look like.
Building Wireframes
1. Define & Discover
2. Ideating
3. Building Wireframes
4. Branding & Visuals
5. Final Designs
6. Reflection
Let’s Begin Ideating…
Using the sketches and the task flow that I developed, I created mid-fidelity wireframes for my initial prototype. I took Jakob’s Law into consideration and tried to preserve similar design elements and patterns of other social media platforms that our target user group is familiar with.
Initial Prototype
3. Building Wireframes
Initial Prototype
Interview Guide
Final Prototype Changes
Interview Guide for Prototype Testing
I conducted 2 major rounds of user-testing by the target demographic I wanted to design for (BIPOC young adults 18-25). This helped me with discovering the major issues of the design during user testing.
Final Prototype Changes
When approaching usability tests we want to find out how to make our designs more intuitive. I had to be mindful throughout testing to make sure that I did not unintentionally change the responses of participants. Since I am showing my final prototype revision, you will see that I was adding changes that were not addressed in the first round of user testing.
Home Screen and Navigation Clarity
Make Journal Tags look like Chips
Clarify Flow of Actions on Journal Entry Screen
Automatically Save Journal Entry
Branding and Visuals
1. Define & Discover
2. Ideating
3. Building Wireframes
4. Branding & Visuals
5. Final Designs
6. Reflection
Brand Identity
When I began developing an idea for the brand identity I started out by making a mood board. I added images that reminded me of things that were
vibrant, lively, cultured, inspirational, expressive, uplifting, diverse, adventurous, and soulful.
This was created by creating a more “A than B” list.
Brand Name
I went with “ponder” because it still left room for a certain level of ambiguity that went well with the app, especially considering that the app has multiple ways for users to reflect on their wellness/mindfulness journey.
Typography
For the font choice, I went with Montserrat due to how light and simple it is.
Sketching Wordmarks
I started to play with the weight and position of my wordmark. I then chose a few of my favourite wordmarks, keeping the text relatively simple. I wanted to add an image in the wordmark that mimicked the name “Ponder”.
Colour Palette
These are the primary brand colours that I chose for the app.
I then added colour to my wordmark and app icon.
4. Branding and Visuals
Brand Identity
UI Library
UI Library
I collected all of the elements used in my Hi Fidelity prototype in a user interface library. I grouped everything into atoms, molecules, and organisms. This allowed me to keep track of everything used, and to create a consistent design.
Final Designs
1. Define & Discover
2. Ideating
3. Building Wireframes
4. Branding & Visuals
5. Final Designs
6. Reflection
Our Final Product… Kind of…
We compile all of the information and data, along with the visual identity that we developed in our branding to the final prototype.
Ponder was created to nurture a place where young Black Indigenous and People of Colour can learn, feel inspired, seek community, engage in self-expression and mindful practice so that they can be present in life. We want to integrate wellness as well as arts and culture to bring about intentional living.
Though this is our final product, the process of design means changes and amendments. As we know our product better and how we can create for the people that use it, we also understand the “final product” will always change.
5. Final Designs
Final Product
High-Fidelity Interactive Prototype
High - Fidelity Interactive Prototype
Reflection
1. Define & Discover
2. Ideating
3. Building Wireframes
4. Branding & Visuals
5. Final Designs
6. Reflection
3 Things I Learned Throughout the Process
6. Reflection
Lessons Learned
Design Impact and Considerations
Future Thinking
Design Impact and Considerations
The Impact of my Design
My design intervention was meant to create a space for people to guide themselves through their own wellness journey. For the app, I chose to focus on the action of writing a journal entry. Though this is the focused task flow, there are also other functions provided within the app such as:
Deeper Inquiry
Some questions for next steps in the product…
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The most sustainable behaviour my product encourages is self-reflection and gratitude but I feel as though there isn’t enough of an influence to the connection of the earth. I think finding a way to encourage better understanding of the earth and what it needs, and how it helps us is incredibly important for us and our future. This would also be important considering that this app is also supposed to be made for Indigenous populations.
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I think the most concerning aspect of the business model would be the privacy settings. I think it should be made clear that anything written in a private journal entry will be as secure as we can make it.
I also feel that it should be important to note that this app is sharing research-backed practices, and though they are highly helpful it is not meant to act as a cure but something to help the mental health and wellness journey.
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I feel like the app would support healthy habits and norms but, making sure that people using the app also know the importance of disconnecting from digital spaces every now and then can be helpful and important to grounding yourself.
Future Thinking
Marketing Website
I created a marketing website to promote the app to stakeholders and potential users. I made sure to incorporate a few key elements into the website such as
hero images to showcase what the app looks like.
testimonials so that viewers get a sense of the potential experience they may have.
the values and benefits of the app.
clear CTAs for the app.
the tone and aesthetic of the native app.