Writeaday
Although countless journaling and note-taking tools already exist on the market, we found that there was something fundamentally lacking in current product offerings. From the outset, we asked ourselves this very generic but important question: How do we get people to want to keep a journal?
Many journaling apps exist within the paradigm of what we are accustomed to in the real world- an empty notebook with lined pages that we continue to fill. The powers of a digital interface should be harnessed to offer something even greater than what can exist in our physical world.
Role
Founder, Designer
Results
500,000+ downloads on the Google Play store
Featured in PhoneDog’s Top 10 Android apps of February 2017.
Contribution
Idea Conceptualization
Interaction Design / Prototyping
Branding
Challenge
We broke down the challenge of inspiring a user to continue using a journaling to two aspects:
1. Getting people to write entries today
2. Getting people to write day-to-day
The best way to get people started on a long term habit is not to think about how many times they’ll have to do it in the future, but instead focus on right now. We get people to write everyday by helping people to focus on solely today, one day and one step at a time. Hence it is imperative that creating entries be fun, quick and easy.
Focusing on Today
We broke down the challenge of inspiring a user to continue using a journaling to two aspects:
1. Getting people to write entries today
2. Getting people to write day-to-day
The best way to get people started on a long term habit is not to think about how many times they’ll have to do it in the future, but instead focus on right now. We get people to write everyday by helping people to focus on solely today, one day and one step at a time. Hence it is imperative that creating entries be fun, quick and easy.
The month-view gives a nice illustration of entries and shows users how consistent they’ve been.
The infinite view shows all the entries ever created. A smooth, continuous gradient indicates a consistent journaling habit.
A random entry appears on the sidebar as a delightful reminder of the past.
Keeping Up a Habit
In order to get people to input entries consistently, on a day-to-day basis, we thought it best to simply design the ability to look back at the user’s past behavior in an easy manner.
We believe that the ability to see how consistently you’ve been writing entries allows users to understand and utilize this information to improve their frequency of use (if entry quantity is low), or to exemplify and reward consistency (if entry is quantity is high).
Results
Writeaday currently has over half a million downloads and over 5,000 reviews. I have been astounded at the reception of this simple tool. Reading reviews saying that Writeaday has helped them with their mental health is extremely heart-warming and has reaffirmed the reason I create well-designed products that people can use.
