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Spectrum | The Raw App for Colored Moods

A cozy experience for gathering holistic knowledge about yourself

By jeanneparikka and X-iO | @ IronHack ux|ui


Video | Images credit: Research by Ethical Design 69 | Our user persona, Trinity by Weiwesleywei | Art Images by Rafaël Rozendaal’s Haikus


PROCESS

BACKGROUND

 

We were asked to design an App about wellness considering the following facts:

The global mHealth apps market size was valued at USD 40.05 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.7% from 2021 to 2028.

The Daily Health Conference is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting health and wellness, which began in 1983 in San Francisco. Its program has been slow to catch up with technology, and they have seen a substantial drop in memberships. To offer more value to its members. To do this, they have been looking for a set of digital mobile apps for their members and a design system that reflects an innovative approach to wellness


After downloading a few more popular ones, we moved further with research…

We discovered most apps were:

— overdesigned

— crowded with noisy data

— too many steps to follow

— standard messages about happiness

— most of them actually make you feel even worse


PHS1 | RESEARCH

 

From the selection below, we captured the more accepted points with the following: minimalism, visual information, and uniqueness. However, the last one, “I Love Hue” is actually a relaxing video game with colors and perceptions, which we took as inspiration.

Right after the competitive analysis, we moved forward to quantitative and qualitative analysis including statistics, surveys, and interviews.


— Statistics show that of users of wellness apps, based in the USA and EU 57% are men and 43% are women.


Through these methods, we also got a more familiar approach regarding the motivations, needs, goals, pains, and gains of users and we encountered the following data: — 80% of our users prefer colors to communicate rather than text (27%) or sounds (20%) due to the overwhelming media communication methods. — 100% All users were affected by stress and anxiety, mainly coming from work or family and there is no consensus about colors and feelings. — 80% believe that colors have a connection with feelings and that colors can impact emotions. — 100% believe that colors influence their daily routine.


On the other hand, the meaning of colors can be very subjective. Some users mentioned a preference for a red-wine color, while it brings a sensation of calmness as when sitting in a nice restaurant.


As main points, we found that designing an app based on colors and emotions would have to be as subjective and personalized as feelings and colors are. Therefore, with this in mind we define the following:


PROBLEM STATEMENT | VALUE PROPOSITION | MVP:

 

The Spectrum Mood Tracker App provides a cozy experience to all of those who are hyper-saturated by communication and work environment.


Users can be aware of their feelings, track their moods, and share with their community.


To ensure that these features are available, the users can customize their experience by choosing their preferences of feelings and colors related, and adding to a calendar to gather holistic knowledge about themselves.


PHS2 | IDEATION

 

Right after this phase, we were still very enthusiastic and started building our first sketches about how the app would look like. But once again, we discovered that we weren’t on the right path. Users preferred a more list experience. Therefore we opted for a second choice, ever rawer, and ordered. These discoveries allowed us to build a second prototype with more structured content.


PHS3 | CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT

 

Rafaël Rozendaal Artwork

So, at this point, we come up with the artwork of Rafaël Rozendaal, a visual artist that also makes haikus, and this was the type of content that we were looking for to express the way that the app would broadcast communication: as simple, clumsy and retarded as a haiku.

Our main statement to design the app was to keep it raw, structured, and with a monochromatic sense of color.


DESIGN

 

To continue defining the app, we developed a moldboard, the main brand attribute, typography, and color palette.

The brand's attributes we decided to be the following ones:

— Zen

— Minimal

— Calm

— Austere

— Monochromatic


As for color palette and typography, we chose the following:

The color palette keeps the zen mind with b/n colors. The adjacent color is defined by the user selection through a color picker.

The Typography, Monument Grotesk, is a confident font with a raw and pleasingly unpolished feel. Finally, we created a report based on the feelings that were selected by the user, and the result is a colorful shower of dots with no data but a color that also shows the main feeling of the reported time.





PHS4 | NEXT STEPS

 

In a near future, users can write their own haikus based on their feelings and also add notes to specific moments as a reminder of what made them feel good or did not contribute to their happiness. So as to have a total experience.


By jeanneparikka and X.iO at IronHack



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