AIX Design: Define

During the Define phase, our objective was to analyze our insights from the Empathize phase and determine how AI could be meaningfully integrated into our journaling app. This phase focused on clarifying user needs and shaping potential design directions so that when entering the Ideation phase, we could create solutions that effectively support our users.

We began by developing user personas. This tool allowed us to deepen our understanding of how different users might engage with a journaling app, and why it would be valuable to them. Based on our research, we identified two primary personas: regular journalers and infrequent journalers. We found that regular journalers are open to exploring new approaches and appreciate guided prompts that encourage deeper reflection. In contrast, those who journal less frequently often struggle to start and maintain the habit due to busy schedules. This group is primarily seeking motivation, structure, and consistency support.

From the creation of user personas, we were able to then create user journey maps. These are used to understand each person’s current relationship with journaling and how we might be able to create design decisions that can help them succeed in their practice. To help us with this process, we included six phases in each journey map: contemplation, preparation, collection, integration, reflection, and action. Making a scenario for each person helped us to understand what their main challenges are with journaling, and why journaling could prove to be some sort of benefit. For example, we found that during the preparation phase of infrequent journalers, they were beginning to buy a journal to start the journaling process. They thought, ‘“Okay… this feels safe. But I hope this doesn’t feel like extra work.” From understanding that the user is unsure about journaling and its time restraint we found that a design opportunity could include a friendly onboarding process that emphasizes journaling as “pressure-free.”

After creating our personas and journey maps, we reanalyzed our secondary research, including competitive analysis and broader journaling research. This helped us identify our users’ core need which are: Clear user guidance, motivation support, multi-format journaling options, and easy access to past entries. Once these needs were defined, we evaluated the potential role of AI in each area.

As a team, we completed this worksheet to determine where AI would provide meaningful value and where it would be unnecessary. We concluded that AI could be particularly useful for prompt generation and multi-format analysis, enabling support for video, audio, and handwritten entries. However, we also identified potential concerns. AI could present challenges related to user privacy, which is especially important to our audience, and overly robotic functionality could negatively impact the reflective and personal nature of journaling.

One of the biggest challenges during the Define phase was synthesizing our interview findings into cohesive personas and journey maps. While many responses shared similarities, there were also significant differences, making it difficult to combine insights accurately. To address this, we created two distinct personas and used ChatGPT to help analyze interview data more effectively. ChatGPT became a valuable tool in refining our insights and supporting our transition into the Ideation phase.