One Voice Journal
A journaling app designed to connect users to their faith and selves.
Together with a team of 6 developers, 1 product manager, 1 product lead, and 1 other designer, we designed and began implementation for a mobile journaling app targeted at helping Christians connect more deeply with their faith and self, as well as fostering a sense of global connection among users. I was primarily responsible for designing the journal entry portion of the app.
About the Client: This project was completed through Develop for Good—an organization that connects non-profits to teams of student volunteer designers, developers, and project managers. Our client was the Firm Development Foundation—a non-profit Church Ministry with the goal of using technology to connect with Christians across the world to spread good. Our project, One Voice Journal, is part of their OneAccord ecosystem—a Christian connection and education network for believers to connect, learn, and grow community groups.
ROLE
UX/UI Designer
UX ResearcherDATE
Aug 2024TOOLS
Figma
Miro
Project Objective
Create a mobile journaling app for self-reflection and spiritual growth, enabling users to connect with others globally.
Schedule
While the project was originally planned as an engineering-only effort, during the initial scoping phase, the team discovered a combined design and engineering effort was required. To do this, they brought in two designers in week 5 of the project and as a team we collaborated to develop a schedule for project to allow design and engineering work to happen simultaneously.
"Collaborating with Develop For Good was an absolute joy. The students brought fresh ideas and a real passion for excellence that showed in every part of their work. They listened to what we needed and created a design that’s both modern and incredibly user-friendly. The engineers were just as impressive, going the extra mile to include offline functionality, which has made our app even more versatile. We couldn’t be more pleased with the results and are truly thankful for their dedication to our project.”
- Curtis Smith, Partner, Firm Collective
Demo Video
Narrated by our Project Manager, Rozalin Draghosian.
Design Research
Competitive Analysis:
First, we conducted a competitive analysis of a variety of journaling and dream journaling apps, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses in areas such as user interface, features, and user experience. Our research highlighted several opportunities for One Voice Journal, such as incorporating prompts, tags, filtering, and text formatting.
Personas/User Journey Mapping:
Our client originally had two user groups in mind for the app—the primary user group was Christian adults and the secondary user group was non-religious dream journalers. From creating the journey maps for each of these groups, we found that the needs of each were different enough that, together with the client, we decided to focus solely on Christian users for the MVP.
Story Mapping:
To prepare for lo-fi wireframing and ensure we understood what each feature would require, I created the story map below.
Branding
Colors:
The client had some preliminary branding in place, but were open to new ideas. After testing the initial background and text color pairings provided by the client, we found that 4 of them did not meet accessibility standards.
For the new brand colors, we wanted to stay close to the brand’s existing palette while also evoking spirituality and reflection. We therefore landed on a palette with tints and shades of the brand’s existing colors and added the color purple.
Look and Feel:
Taking the new colors we had selected, I then began exploring ways of implementing them on a couple of initial wireframes. After presenting the options to the client, we selected a version that used a subtle gradient (based on the OneVoice logo), purple accents, and colorful buttons.
Logo:
As the concept for the app developed, the client ultimately decided to make One Voice Journal a standalone app under the One Voice umbrella. To reflect this, we created several options for a new logo that would still emphasize the app’s association with the One Voice brand, and the client selected the logo outlined below.
Wireframing
To meet the schedule set with engineers, we progressed rapidly from lo-fi to hi-fi wireframes, incorporating the branding we developed for the client. I was responsible for the journal entry screens shown below.
User Testing
We conducted two rounds of user testing through User Testing with a total of 15 participants (5 in the first round and 10 in the second). Overall, the feedback from users was very positive, particularly around the audio recording and enhanced search features. However, we did find several small but impactful adjustments to make after each round to improve the user experience.
User Testing Quotes
“I'm impressed because in that way I can search for specific tags. Tags were easy to add, remove and view.”
“Overall very good features all are easy to use and well implemented.”
“Having the tags were nice to kind of be able to organize your posts better.”
“My overall experience was positive as everything works well and it is a very clear and easy app to use.”
“Amazing. Loved the features with audio notes, editing and journaling. Looks like fun and the media types make it better and more attractive. Love the audio notes.”
“This app was easy to use and well set up.”
App Features
Add and Format Text 📄
Users can enter a title and body text and format the text to change its size, add bold/underline/italics/strikethrough, create a bulleted or numbered list, or add highlight.
Record Audio and Edit Transcription 🎙️
Users can record an audio note and trim any unwanted sections. An auto-generated transcription will be available once the audio note is saved. This transcription can be edited to correct any errors.
Prompts 💬
A blank page can be intimidating. Users can get inspiration for what to write with prompts.
Team Collaboration:
Our remote team of 9 was distributed around the world with up to 12 hours of time difference between us. This meant we had to be intentional about our collaboration, both internally and with our client. We used Slack, Figma, and Miro boards for asynchronous collaboration and held weekly meetings with the client, with our internal design and engineering team, and with the design team. In our meetings with the client, we presented our work and discussed any items needing their input. In our internal meetings, we did an individual stand-up and presented relevant progress in the design work—such as giving demos of features that had been designed to ensure the engineers understood the intent behind our designs when we handed them off to be developed. Our design team meetings functioned as working sessions where we could discuss any blockers or provide review of each others’ designs.
What’s Next?
There were many potential features we identified during the design process that we didn’t make it into the scope for the initial MVP. One of the biggest areas for future development is the incorporation of AI. To help the client communicate this potential to other stakeholders, I developed several hi-fi wireframes illustrating ways in which AI could be incorporated into the app.
Project Collaborators:
Product Manager: Rozalin Draghosian
Designers:
Haley McLeod
Sonia Leung
Engineering Manager: David Cao
Developers:
Julian Beaudry
Lyton Mhlanga
Min Nguyen
Nankun Xu
Qilong Wang
Satvik Narang