LifeLately.
A solution to empower students to develop self-regulation skills, enhance emotional management, and engage in therapeutic self-help activities.
-
Applied User Experience
-
User Research
User Personas
Usability Testing
Prototyping
UI/UX Design
Design thinking
-
Aug 22' - May 23'
-
Figma
Introduction
What is LifeLately?
LifeLately. is an AI-powered solution to manage emotions, track mental health progress, and explore helpful resources.
As a part of the first cohort of Applied User Experience at the University of Texas at Dallas, our team developed LifeLately to help students feel more confident in managing their mental health independently, foster healthier coping strategies, and ultimately improve their overall well-being.
The Problem
According to a report conducted by Gallup, emotional stress was cited by 69% of bachelor’s degree students, and 55% of community college students.
When college students face difficulties in self-regulating their emotional well-being and adopting healthy coping mechanisms, they seek a convenient and accessible solution that enables them to effectively manage their emotions, track their mental health progress, and connect with a supportive community.
The Solution
LifeLately leverages cutting-edge Natural Language Processing AI to allow users to engage in therapeutic self-help activities given the obstacles hindering them from seeking other outlets such as professional therapy, confiding in their support system, and their reluctance to do so.
By journaling and tracking emotional progress, users are able to have an outlet for emotional expression, enhance self-awareness, and reduce stress/anxiety. Supplemented with AI Insights and weekly advice, LifeLately is the perfect solution to manage mental health and encourage problem-solving.
The Process
Discovery
The transition into college life often presents challenges in maintaining emotional well-being and adopting healthy coping mechanisms. In response, college students seek readily available and convenient interventions that empower them to effectively regulate their emotions, monitor their mental health progress, and foster a sense of connectedness within a supportive community.
This underscores the need for research into scalable and accessible interventions that address the unique mental health needs of college students.
Primary Research
Interviews
In these interviews, we spoke with a range of relevant people (current students, people who have taken therapy, tech and mental health professionals) about their backgrounds, experience, views on AI, and what tools would help them improve their mental health, and what features would benefit them.
By understanding each interviewee’s specific expertise and point of view, we were able to further refine the unique concepts, features, and workflows.
Insights
Given the following high-level findings, our team has decided upon the provided problem statement that encompasses the scope of our mobile product.
Define
User Persona
Following our research and interviews, we were able to create multiple user personas. By creating detailed personas, we were able to gain a deeper understanding of user needs, motivations, and pain points, which in turn informs problem definition and solution development.
Ideate
Market Research & Competitor Analysis
Features
After a series of guided ideation sessions, our team decided that the most integral features to pinpoint in order to make our product efficient, effective, and satisfying are:
1. Journaling
2. Self-regulation
3. Emotional management
All of which will be super-powered by the integration of gamification elements, personalization, and the supplemental enhancements of artificial intelligence through informed recommendations.
Prototype
See it yourself: Final User Interaction