Constant- A Journaling App
Constant is a habit-forming journaling app designed to help students manage stress and build emotional resilience.
UX Designer
Academic Project
Figma
Figjam
Miro Board
Photoshop
14 Weeks
Year
2024
Challenge
Students today face overwhelming stress and anxiety, yet lack accessible and consistent tools for emotional management, highlighting the need for a habit-forming journaling app to provide real-time stress relief and build long-term emotional resilience.
Solution
Constant addresses the challenge of academic stress by providing students with a secure, user-friendly journaling app designed to promote mindfulness and emotional resilience. The app offers guided prompts, mood analysis, and AI-powered insights to help users reflect and manage stress effectively.
With guided prompts, mood tracking, and rewarding streaks, Constant empowers users to reflect, organize their thoughts, and manage academic pressures effectively. Tailored for students, the app transforms daily journaling into a powerful tool for personal growth and mental well-being.
View Prototype
Process
The design process follows a structured approach: Discover, Define, Design, Test, and Deliver, ensuring thoughtful solutions driven by user insights and continuous refinement.
Hooked Model: Inspired by the concepts in Nir Eyals' "Hooked", I incorporated triggers, actions, investments, and variable rewards to create engaging and habit-forming user experiences.
Research: I began the process by researching the problem, and below is the data I gathered to inform the design decisions.
87%
87% of college students report feeling overwhelmed by their academic workload
45%
45% students reported seeking help for issues regarding stress management
35%
Journaling can reduce anxiety and depression symptoms by up to 35%
35% of students here at Thomas Jefferson University seek stress related help.
Target Market: The target audience consists of university students seeking effective stress management tools to enhance their academic performance and well-being.
Roughly 5300 Universities in USA
which rounds to approximately 20.2 million students.Out of those 45% students seek mental health regarding help which rounds to approximately 9.09 million students.
Ideation
Feature Roadmap: Upon gaining a deep understanding of the user, I identified and prioritized key features, with 'Must Haves' being essential for the app and 'Should Haves' as valuable additions, all tailored to the project timeline.
Must have
Personalized reminders via notifications containing
Note pad to write about their feelings.
Visualize progress tracking through charts, streaks, or milestones.
Mood tracking to help users track their emotional well-being over time.
Predict patterns after several journal entries using AI for personalization.
Onboarding guidance details to help users understand the features of the app.
Clear and transparent privacy policy.
Should have
Streaks for daily journaling consistency
Pre written prompts making writing much easier and quicker.
Feature to add photos to describe their day even better
Option to reflect at particular times of the day using pre written prompts
Allow users to speak their entries using audio journal feature.
Offline journaling option for users to write even when they are not connected to internet.
Flashbacks from this day last year.
User Flow: The navigation flow played a pivotal role in shaping the development of this app, ensuring a user-centric design that caters specifically to the needs of students. By crafting a seamless and intuitive journey through the app, the navigation flow prioritized accessibility, ease of use, and concise interaction.
Lo-Fi Wireframes: The next step in my process was creating low-fidelity wireframes, where I explored multiple options before finalizing the full task flow for a more refined version
UI Kit
The moodboard played a crucial role in designing Constant, shaping the app's style guide and overall tone by carefully curating images, colors, and design elements to ensure a cohesive and inspiring aesthetic.
Hi-Fidelity Prototype
Feature Roadmap: We conducted user interviews, surveys, and analyzed in-app analytics to understand the pain points and user needs. We also studied competitor apps and industry trends to gather insights
Onboarding: The app's homepage and overall experience are personalized based on the user’s selections during the onboarding process. By tailoring features, prompts, and design elements to individual preferences.
View Prototype
Curated Content and Analysis: The app offers curated content, including articles and videos, tailored to the user’s profile. Additionally, after logging mood data for a certain number of days, users receive detailed analysis to help them better understand their emotional patterns and progress.
View Prototype
Journaling: In addition to journaling, the app offers morning and evening reflection features. Based on the user’s preferences, these reflections provide guided and personalized prompts to help users start their day with focus and end it with mindfulness.
View Prototype
Usability Testing
The usability testing aimed to evaluate the functionality, ease of use, and overall user experience of the journaling app designed for stress management.
Participants were tasked with completing key workflows, such as mood tracking, morning/evening reflections, and exploring curated content.
Avg. duration
Tasks Tested
Success Ratio
Confidence
Ease
Testing Hours
Usability Issues
Delighters
Participants
Based on the usability testing, I gathered all the data and created a graph to highlight which tasks users found challenging. I then identified minimal changes that could solve these usability issues. I worked on five such problems, out of which three are shown below.
View Updated Prototype
The floating 'Journal' button is now more prominent and clearly labeled for easy access.
BEFORE
AFTER
Conclusion
Designing the Constant journaling app was a meaningful journey of understanding user needs and creating a solution that promotes stress management through mindful habits. By focusing on simplicity, engagement, and accessibility, I was able to craft a product that empowers students to manage their stress effectively. This project not only strengthened my design and problem-solving skills but also reinforced my belief in creating solutions that make a real difference in people’s lives.