Ray
Brighten up your day
Overview
Let the sunshine in
Ray is a notification-based app meant to help you bring more positivity into your life, inspired by the principles of positive psychology.
It’s pretty straightforward - you set the times, topics, and frequency, and Ray reminds you when it is time to try a more compassionate approach with yourself. Using Ray on a daily basis is meant to enhance a pattern of positive thinking over time.
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Problem Statement
What are you thinking of?
According to research conducted by the National Science Foundation, we have:
12,000-50,000
thoughts every day
70%-80%
of these thoughts are negative
95%
are the same as the day before
Most of us don’t talk very nicely to ourselves. We want to, we know we should, but we don’t give ourselves enough credit, and often speak to ourselves in a way we wouldn’t take from anyone else.
Research suggests that in order to increase positivity, we should practice positive self-talk. We shouldn't say anything to ourselves that we wouldn’t say to anyone else. We should emphasize the positive in life and focus on it.
These are all great tips, but they are also the mere definition of “easier said than done”. That’s where Ray comes in - a little reminder from outside, to help you look at the bright side.
Here is an example:
Ray notification flow prototype
Users & Audience
(not) Everybody loves the sunshine
Obviously, no one is immune to negative self-talk. Yet, not everyone is aware and interested in changing this, and even fewer people would be willing to use an app to do so.
Based on a survey answered by 100+ people interested in Positive Psychology, here are some demographics of the potential audience:
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69% women
64% aged 26-35
73% married or in a relationship
Based on these statistics, I have created a user persona example:
Dana Cohen, 29 years old, married, works as Marketing Manager in an Israeli tech company.
Dana is the typical user for whom I have built the user flow, but of course users may vary, and as the project expands it would be necessary to research further and create more meaningful ways to interact with the app.
Work Process
Looking for the sun
After completing a survey, competitive research, and user interviews, I have created two basic user flows: notification flow & onboarding flow:
I have translated the flows into the components that will eventually constitute the app (at this point, only the essentials). I explored different layouts using crazy 8's and a lot of research for references.
Eventually, I decided to keep it simple and create an easy to use layout using scroll, similar to social media apps we know and use a lot, but with a positive twist. Here are the scroll prototyping and the onboarding prototyping side by side:
Onboarding flow
Scroll prototyping
At this point, I have only started working on the app UI design.
Here are the main elements:
Typography
Logo
Rays texts
Headers
Large text
Small text
Color palette
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Graphic elements
Outcomes and Insights
Follow the sun
Creating a more positive mindset in our day-to-day life is an ongoing journey, and designing an app is no different...
Given more time and resources, I would like this app to develop in directions enabling more interaction between users and creating a community: Adding an Explore feature, enabling the upload of your own inspirational quotes or artwork, and perhaps reacting to content - of course, all subject to research, making sure this app still has an overall positive effect on the users' everyday life.
Another feature I would love to explore is the option to engage with music within the app - as studies show music has incredibly positive effects on our brain, mood, and motivation (and on that note - If you didn't find the hidden links yet, hover over the headlines to go to the songs behind them...)
