Monolog
Client Problem Statement
Monolog is a startup journaling app built to modernize the journaling experience by leveraging video recordings. Using natural language processing, Monolog provides insights by identifying common themes and phrases in journaling entries, therefore supporting users in reflection, self-awareness, and mental resilience.
At alpha phases, the team sought to have formative research conducted to understand how their core value proposition and technology resonated with their desired user base. They also wanted to understand what other features could be developed in order to encourage product adoption and engagement.
As Monolog was a passion project done outside of the core team’s day jobs, research took place sporadically through the year based on the team’s personal bandwidth and self-paced development cycle.
Objectives + Research Questions
Project Objectives
Define the product’s habitual users and understand Monolog’s alignment to their needs
Understand what product functions (current and future) are most valuable to their core user base
Assess new feature prototypes and support prioritization for beta launch
Research Questions
RQ1: What defines Monolog’s habitual users, and are we doing good for them?
Is it making their lives better? Is it providing new value?
What methods may we mechanize to encourage user habituation and adoption in healthy, non-toxic ways?
RQ2: What are the most valuable functions (current and future) of the application for our core user base?
RQ3: What’s next for Monolog?
In what ways does Monolog complement users’ current mental health, reflection, or self documentation practices?
Methodology
x3 rounds of research were conducted to define Monolog’s habitual users, assess baseline resonance of Monolog’s value proposition to user needs, and to prototype future offerings.
Activity 1: Alpha product launch usability tests and contextual interviews
Activity 2: Monolog Team Retreat and Design Brainstorm
Activity 3: Prototype Concept testing
This was a multi-phase consultancy taking place from February 2022 through December 2022.
My Role
At the time, the 6-person Monolog team was comprised of : x2 Co-Founders (Business + Engineering), x2 Software Engineer, x1 Designer, and x1 Legal and Marketing specialist.
I primarily collaborated with the Business & Strategy co-founder and Designer. Engagement with the rest of the team took place over biweekly team meetings or on an “as needed” basis.
Activity 1: Alpha launch usability
Overview
Research Question Alignment
RQ1: What defines Monolog’s habitual users, and are we doing good for them?
RQ2: What are the most valuable functions (current and future) of the application for our core user base?
At consultancy initiation, the Monolog team had already built a working version of the application and was in the process of setting up alpha testing in Apple TestFlight with a small waitlist of interested users collected through personal connections and social media.
x5 waitlist participants were sourced to participate in this study:
x1 week of independent application use
x1 60 minute interview and usability test focusing on self-care and mental wellness habits and the following features:
Vlog / Voice Memo Interface
Past Recordings Library and Search
Frequently Used Words and Mood Chart “Vistas”
To understand the appeal of video journaling across a variety of potential users, participants were sourced to include a wide range journaling familiarity, as well as people who may already be using mobile applications for mental wellness.
Participant characteristics were focused on profiles that fit Monolog’s target audience, with ethnic and gender diversity.
Usability Test participant demographics
Setup
Interviews were conducted over Zoom. Users were instructed to log into Zoom on two devices:
A laptop, desktop computer, or tablet facing the participant
On their mobile application in which the Monolog application is downloaded
Instructions were provided in a participant confirmation email. An additional 10 minutes was allotted for technical troubleshooting, such as correcting for multi-device echo or mobile screen sharing issues.
Key Findings
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5 out of 6 participants expressed discomfort with the Video Only format, although 2 out of 6 participants mentioned interest in studying their facial expressions as non-verbal cues. Participants alluded to situations where they may be agitated and want to avoid capturing their visual image.
100% of participants mentioned an option for Voice Only Recording as a product enhancement.
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Due to the personal nature of journaling content, all participants mentioned concerns with privacy and security. 5 of 6 participants mentioned privacy and security as a concern when using Monolog:
How data is used by the application (monetization, facial recognition)
Issues with recording sensitive and private information.
“If people … get emotional and like cry or are like angry ... I wouldn’t want to be on camera, like crying you know?”
“Whenever I did a recording it was at home, I feel like doing a journaling session outside and public would be kind of tricky.
One: you know if you’re sharing something really personal to your journal, it might be hard to do that in a public setting. It also might be really loud to do that in the public setting versus writing.”
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Most participants found value in the Frequent Words chart and 5 of 6 participants found value in the Mood Chart, especially in personal reflection over time.
However, accuracy and context are important requirements for successful implementation. 66% participants found that Frequent Words were sometimes redundant or were not reflective of the journal entries’ context.
50% of participants also stated that their Mood Chart may be biased, as they tend to journal in similar contexts (ie when they’re feeling positive or negative), or when they need to “rant” as a mental release.
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Participants who are consistent journalers discussed how Monolog might fit in with their existing journaling habit. For the most part, existing journalers were reluctant to fully relinquish existing journals; the idea of maintaining journal content across more than one channel garnered mixed response.
Some participants also wondered if removing the physical act of writing will result in the same scientific benefits of journaling.
Both journalers and non-journalers see journaling as a supplemental tool rather than primary mental health coping mechanism, and they can see the Monolog app being used as part of talk therapy.
“If I’m able to click on [a word] and it shows up all the different entities, and I can bring this to my therapist and say ‘Look I’ve been saying this,’ and then we could ... check those out and ... bridge those connections together.”
Left: A screen displaying the Monolog Vistas features, ie data summaries across recent video journal entries.
Currently, the app has two vistas: 1. a Frequent Words app showing themes in topics, and a Mood Tracker to show how your mood has changed over the past week.
“...Curious if a similar [positive] effect could be seen through recording yourself on an app. Writing is definitely very meditative too, an app may not have the same effect.”
Outcomes and next steps
As a result of this research, the team decided to prioritize the following items:
Camera Off mode: Based on signals of general discomfort for a Camera On default, the team decided to develop a Camera Off mode for situation where users are not feeling their best
Finetuning Frequent Word algorithm: Due to feedback that the Frequent Word Vista was biased toward “filler” words, the team decided to conduct additional research around available open source natural language processing (NLP) databases enhance its Frequent Word algorithm and remove re.
Mental wellness marketing: The team has received validation that Monolog could have a future as a supplemental tool for mental health workers and their clients. Thus, the co-founders are attempting to build relationships between the team and mental health professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area to understand possible partnerships and use cases within functional practice.
Activity 2: Design Workshop
Overview
In July 2022, the entire Monolog team came together for the first time for a two-day strategy retreat.
During Day 2, I led a 3 hour Design Workshop to guide the team to combine existing Monolog product knowledge and go-to-market (GTM) strategy to generate feature concepts that meet Monolog’s vision and user base.
Research Question Alignment
RQ1: What defines Monolog’s habitual users, and are we doing good for them?
RQ3: What’s next for Monolog?
The session was comprised of three parts:
Review - What we already know
Summary of Day 1 discussions: Vision alignment, GTM strategy,
Personas: Primary and secondary users
Feature prioritization: Review “feature shortlist” generated during previous team activity from 3+ months ago
Breakout Groups - User Empathy
Deep dive into a Persona and build empathy for what they need.
Write a headline: In 5 years, how would you want Monolog to make headlines for this persona?
Arts & Crafts Time - Design a Prototype
Using the craft materials in front of you, design 1-2 Monolog features that provide value for your persona.
Above: Examples from the slidedeck used during workshop facilitation introducing two activities: 1. Empathy Map breakout groups and 2. Ideal Future Headlines
Workshop in action
1 and 2: Notes collected during the “User Empathy” exercise where breakout groups were asked to create an Empathy Map for an assigned persona.
3-6: Examples of paper prototypes developed during “Arts & Crafts” Prototyping session. Concept description of images in clockwise from top left
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Prioritization and next steps
All design workshop participants were asked to share their design concepts with the group.
Following shareout, participants were asked to vote for their favorite concepts using a set of criteria, using the dot method.
Above: A workshop slide introducing the dot voting method to stack rank concepts ideated during the session.
Voting results revealed two ideas heavily favored by the team:
Learning Pathways: A set of curated journaling prompts that walk users through areas of self improvement.
Reels: A feature meant to aid user reflection by curating journal entries from the past by specific themes or emotions.
As next step, the team agreed to take these Top 2 designs to concept testing in a follow-up round of research.
Activity 3: Prototype Concept Testing
Overview
In order to understand if Monolog’s current product trajectory meets the needs of target users, the team introduced the current Monolog vision and product to a series of participants within their target demographic.
Participants were also asked to react to a series of prototypes for two potential future Monolog features generated during the Design Workshop:
Learning Pathways: A set of curated journaling prompts that walk users through areas of self improvement.
Reels: A feature meant to aid user reflection by curating journal entries from the past by specific themes or emotions.
Setup
Study sessions were 45-60 minutes long and conducted over Zoom, and participants walked through 3 activities:
Activity 1: Slidedeck walkthrough of Monolog’s mission and vision, and the current Monolog experience
Activity 2: Pathways prototype walkthrough
Activity 3: Reels prototype walkthrough
The order of Activity 2 and 3 were rotated by participants. All activities are followed with a post-section verbal questionnaire.
Sessions were conducted by x2 team members (one moderator, one notetaker) with materials navigated by the team over Google Slides and Adobe XD.
Key Findings
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Putting pen to paper, especially on a set schedule, is personal and grounding.
Participants who actively journal considered journaling as a means to process the immediate present. This is contrary to assumptions made by the Monolog team where self-reflection on the past is a key user need.
Although there are instances of journaling to connect the dots in past events, few set out to journal for that specific purpose.
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Physical writing is intimidating for some people. The slower pace of physical writing gives more space for self-judgment.
Due to this, the video journaling medium may provide value for users to be more raw and genuine. It also provides value in visual cues to complement the written word or to aide in recall.
Similar to earlier research findings, the rawness of video content can be intimidating, and privacy is a big concern for people choosing to journal in Monolog.
It's imperative to highlight what Monolog is doing to keep their data safe, and how their data is being used and analyzed.
“My main function in journaling is to write down what happened today, it’s not to know what happened yesterday …
I usually journal when I’m stressed about many things.”
“I was talking to my friend about journaling. She tried it but was criticizing the way she writes and communicates her thoughts. She journaled for a week and then gave up because she was too self-conscious about how she sounded when writing.”
“Having it on video is just like data privacy concerns, like where is this [data] going? Finding some way to tell me that it’s safe, that you can be yourself or setting that stage and tone or mood.”
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For people who don’t know where to start with journaling, Pathways were seen as a helpful feature to instill best practices. Ideally, Pathways can also support reflection by intelligently "connecting the dots" based on past journal entries and areas for self improvement.
Although participants saw the relationship between Reels and emotions, there was a question about the value of revisiting the moments surfaced by the Reels. Most participants did not find unique value in Reels, gravitating toward self search instead to revisit past moments.
As a hypothesis, some participants may have been uncomfortable with Monolog Reels due to its similarities (design and concept) to Instagram Reels. As such, design decisions that allude to social media should be avoided as it creates friction to the inherently private experience of journaling.
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As a hypothesis, participants expected an above-average amount of communication regarding feature value proposition due to the foundational importance of mental wellness to Monolog’s target user groups. In particular, Prompt Wording in the Pathways feature was imperative as it is a point of intense focus in the self reflection workflow.
Onboarding instructions and intuitive interaction design could be a path forward in expressing the Monolog value proposition.
Based on Nielsen Norman Groups Usability Heuristics, improvements could be made, especially in the following ways:
#2 Match between system and the real world
#6 Minimize user’s memory load by making elements, actions, and options visible.
#10 It’s best if the system doesn’t need any additional explanation. However, it may be necessary to provide documentation to help users understand how to complete tasks.
“I really like the Pathways. As someone who wanted to get into mental health care but doesn’t know where to start, it would be valuable for me to have a basis to start with.”
Above: Images of the Pathways Prototype.
From left to right: Pathways Landing page displaying pathway topics, Introduction page for Procrastination Pathway, Video journaling prompt regarding procrastination
“Is Reels meant to make me happier or pull up happy things? Is it meant to inspire? If I were to click on Sad, would it be a bunch of days put together in a video like an [Instagram] Reel?
I’ve seen this feature in the [iPhone] Photos app where it’s oriented around all the times you went to the beach. It felt really logical or made sense. In this context, I’m just journaling and that’s my main task ... I just want to get down today and not be distracted by this.”
Above: Screens of the Reels feature in the Monolog prototype. Reels created based on a specific emotion are display as a carousel on the Monolog Homepage and “Vista” Insights page.
Outcomes and next steps
The findings from Phase 1 usability testing and Phase 3 concept testing had significant influence on the Monolog team’s approach to beta launch:
Marketing and content design: Based on our research, the key user requirements of Security and Psychological Safety are heavily advertised. Privacy policies are called out (ie no Monolog data leaves your phone), and the app’s introduced to be designed around materials created by accredited psychologists.
User education: To ensure users are well-briefed on Monolog’s features and corresponding value propositions, first time users are now greeted with a platform overview to familiarize them with its features and how (and why) to use them.
Product strategy: Additional resourcing was designated to building out the Pathways feature, with the Reels concept sunset. Additionally, the team decided to consciously avoid design mechanisms that evoke social media applications.
The Monolog app’s Apple Store landing page. The marketing language directly aligns to many research key findings.
The first-time user experience when accessing the Journal Recording feature in Monolog.
Instructions for first-time users to describe the Pathways experience and to encourage revisiting Monolog as a mental wellness “ritual.”
To wrap up, I delivered two additional services for the team:
Customer journey map: To support future product development, the journey map provides the team with a visual framework to consider the primary Monolog user’s experience with journaling (analog and video). This tool, created in Miro, can be updated as new user insights are understood, and should allow the team to identify design opportunities and pain points with more ease.
Interaction Design best practices walkthrough: The Monolog team’s sole designer was relatively junior and pivoted to product design from graphic design. As such, I held several informal sessions with the team to discuss Interaction Design best practices, including:
Frameworks for usability heuristics
Known libraries for common in-app icons and symbology
Resources for building and testing for visual accessibility
Reflection
What I would have done differently
Embed research during product conception / pre-development
As stated earlier, I was brought in during the Alpha testing phase.
The team’s design decisions were based on journaling background research and competitive analysis in the mental health tech sector.
There has not been any formal interaction with potential users in their target audiences - concept feedback had been collected through friends and family only.
A significant amount of development (as well as engagement with the Apple Developer Program) had already taken place prior to Phase 1 Usability Testing, at which point several key assumptions (such as video recording appeal) were dissuaded.
Ideally, I would have liked to begin my collaboration with the Monolog team pre-development in order to:
Conduct formative research to solidify understanding of target user Jobs to be Done and Monolog value propositions
Partner with product marketing to maximize social marketing campaign impact through alignment with user needs
Deep dive into journaling psychology
During project kickoff, the Monolog founders shared their long term vision of Monolog as a tool for mental health practitioners (MHPs), similar to common talk therapy practices of assigning journaling or worksheets in between sessions.
During research studies, participants also stated that Monolog’s appeal would increase if they knew it was built using therapy best practices and acted in a psychologically safe way.
In an ideal research scenario, I would want to include mental health practitioners as a secondary audience. This would enhance the journaling user-facing experiences and support ideation on an MVP for the MHP-facing product. Potential research questions could include:
How is journaling used within or reflect the talk therapy experience?
What are MHP’s sentiments toward integrating mobile technology into their practice, and how is this technology currently used?