MUND: Making affirmations work

Designing an app where generic goals fade, and your unique path to self-improvement takes center stage, all while being inspired by a vibrant community.

PROJECT TYPE

Experimental Project

MY ROLE

UI Designer

TOOLS

Figma, Figjam, Photoshop, Illustrator

SCOPE

2 Weeks (2023)
Problem

Existing platforms offer only generic aspirations, leaving users uninspired and disconnected.

Design Challenge

How can we use technology to make affirmations effective?

I know ! We can do it in 3 steps.

  • 1. Create
  • 2. Track
  • 3. Options

(I'll explain.. but first let me give you some more context)

Background

What is MUND?

Mund was born out of a desire to break free from generic aspirations that often lack resonance. Mund empowers users to forge their own path to self-improvement. It not only enables users to create and track their unique goals but also offers them the opportunity to discover affirmation sets made by a diverse community.

Okay, back to the paid programming, our three steps :

Solution

1. Let them create their own

~ Personalized affirmations improve the efficiency and effectiveness of affirmations.
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~ Users are able to relate to and emotionally connect with what they are affirming, thereby increasing the success rate of their affirmations.

~ Personalization prevents the user from wasting their time on things they don't value or desire.

2. Allow them to track their moods

~ The mood tracker feature allows users to see their mood throughout the span of a month, helping them gauge their progress.
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~ Users can save a photo that is a combination of their daily moods for a month, adding a fun and interactive way to track progress.

3. Give them options

~ Depending on who you are, in order to make affirmations more effective, you may prefer to affirm yourself in different ways.
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~ MUND allows users to receive affirmations in 3 different ways: interactively, auditorily, and visually.
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Interactive Affirmations


1. Memory Enhancement : The act of writing something down can improve your memory and recall of the affirmation, making it easier to remember and apply throughout the day.
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2. Commitment and Accountability: Putting your affirmations in writing makes them feel more concrete and commitment-oriented. It's like making a promise to yourself.

3. Tracking Progress: When you use the fill-in-the-blank interactive feature to write affirmations, you can track the affirmations you know and become mindful of those you have been reciting without truly believing.

Auditory
Affirmations


1. Auditory Reinforcement: Hearing affirmations spoken aloud reinforces the positive messages in your mind. It can make the affirmations feel more real and tangible.

2. Enhanced Focus: listening to affirmations aloud requires your active attention, helping you stay focused on the positive message and its meaning.

3. Emotional Connection: The act of vocalizing or hearing affirmations can evoke stronger emotions, making the affirmations more impactful and meaningful.

4. Ease of Integration: Affirmations can be seamlessly integrated into daily routines, such as during a morning ritual or daily commute, making it convenient to practice and benefit from them.

Visual
Affirmations


1. Control Over Pace: When reading, you have control over the pace of learning. You can read at your own speed, pause to reflect, and go back to review material as needed. This level of control can enhance comprehension and retention.

2. Better Retention: studies suggest that reading can lead to better long-term retention of information.

3. Personal Connection: Reading written affirmations allows you to connect with the words and ideas on a personal level because you are engaging with thoughts and beliefs that you have consciously chosen and written.

But, why even do affirmations?

Research

1. They trigger the brains pleasure reaction: Affirmations stimulate brain regions linked to positive assessment and self-processing. Studies also reveal that affirmation activities can trigger the brain's reward system, which is the same system responsive to stimuli like sex or drugs.

2. Long lasting improvement in performance: Research has shown that engaging in self-affirmation activities yields positive results in performance. For example, a 2014 experiment demonstrated that students who listed their personal values before taking an exam improved their academic performance, and a review paper suggested that these benefits are long-lasting.

3. Lower stress levels: Another study proved that people who did affirmations exhibited notably reduced cortisol responses to stress compared to the control group.

Starting with white paper research, I drew from scholarly articles and books highlighting the effectiveness of affirmations, and several experts confirm that they work, but the most important thing is how you do them.

Experts attested to the fact that generic affirmations overlook an individual's unique identity. This research pointed me to the conclusion that a one-size-fits-all approach will ultimately be ineffective.

Based on the research, what is the solution?

An app that allows its users to determine what they consider valuable.

The competition had no focus on personalization

While keeping the above statistics in mind, I analyzed three of the most popular apps available in the app store for affirmations. I found that none of them focused on personalization, and none of them gave the option of interactivity with affirmations

I am

While they do offer personalization, it requires an annual subscription. Therefore, the free version of the app is not as effective, as experts have noted that generic affirmations can be ineffective and potentially counterproductive.

Motivation

Although it claims to offer customization, it falls short of allowing users to create their own affirmations. The paid annual subscription merely provides customization options for the app's appearance and grants access to more pre-made quotes.

 Mantra

Mantra doesn't provide users the option to customize their own affirmations, but it does offer them the ability to explore pre-made sets, which is similar to what other apps provide for affirmations.

My interviewees unanimously voted that the option to personalize their affirmations could be helpful.

Although I learned from the white paper research that personalization is an essential aspect of an affirmation app, I conducted interviews with five individuals, ranging in age from 16 to 22, both male and female. I asked them the questions below to identify trends in what they seek in affirmation apps, and then I organized my data through affinity mapping.

Research Questions

  1. Have you ever used an affirmation app before?
  2. Do you prefer to receive affirmations in the morning, during the day, or before bedtime?
  3. Are there any particular areas of your life (e.g., self-esteem, stress management, productivity) where you feel affirmations could be most beneficial?
  4. How important is it to you that affirmations are personalized to your unique goals and circumstances?
  5. Would you prefer an app that allows you to create your own affirmations or one that provides pre-written affirmations?
  6. Are you interested in tracking your progress or journaling within the app?

Mapping Things Out

With each significant insight from my interviews, I noted it on a sticky note and then organized them, revealing recurring themes in their responses.

Don't worry, you don't have to read those tiny post-its, I'll summarize it for you.

Major Insights

Personalization

People still wanted premade affirmations, but there was a cry for personalized affirmations.

Notifications

People were pretty open to when they wanted to do the affirmations, but they did not want to get spammed by notifications.

Reason for wanting to try affirmations

The purpose of affirmations varied, so there is a need for an app that can offer a variety of affirmations, ranging from entrepreneurship to addressing broken relationships.

Tracking

While tracking wasn't as popularly endorsed as personalization, some people mentioned it could be helpful. However, they also noted that it didn't need to be overly comprehensive since they already had other methods, such as journaling, to track their progress.

User Persona

I summarized the most glaring motivations, goals, and frustrations into a single persona

Setbacks

After a few days of designing, I realized that the app was missing something: Premade affirmations

Though the white paper research advises against generic affirmations because they can do more harm than good in most cases, the surveys shockingly pointed at something a little different: people didn't want to completely get rid of premade affirmations.

I was determined to find the best of both worlds: a solution that doesn't go against the research or the user.

I found it ! Let me tell you more:

Improvements

1 major improvement in my design: Let's get social !

I didn't switch entirely to pre-made affirmations, but I did introduce a social aspect to the application that allowed users to explore affirmations created by other users, giving them a starting point for their own affirmations. This solution addressed both the user's fear of not knowing where to start and the research that cautioned against unpersonalized affirmations.

Final Screens

The final product

Reflections

What I'd do differently next time

Exploring More Tracking: If I were to create this app from scratch again, I would consider adding various forms of tracking, not just mood tracking. During my interviews, tracking didn't appear to be a top priority for my participants, so I focused on mood tracking. However, considering that the primary goal of daily affirmations is self-improvement, I believe it's essential to expand tracking features, even if interviewees didn't emphasize it. Affirmations don't solely impact mood; they also influence factors like stress levels and performance.