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This week I’m analysing How we feel, an emotional wellbeing journal I’ve been using for the past few months.
What problem is HWF solving?
Research shows that if people can identify their emotions correctly, they can work with them more effectively. Further, people curious about their feelings are more inclined to choose strategies that benefit their wellbeing compared to those who judge their feelings and believe they can’t change them which makes them feel resigned and helpless.
The HMW team discovered through research that 1) people often feel a lot, but they can’t label their emotions correctly; 2) they often lack the tools to navigate their feelings in the moment, resulting in conflicts and more difficult sensations; and 3) are likely to follow patterns or get triggered by certain people, situations, places or things.
Who is it for?
The app is designed for anyone who wants to improve how they handle anxiety and stress, want to simply feel better, or build better relationships.
Is HMF helping users to identify their emotions better?
Strong yes! The app has a very cool check-in system where you first choose between emotion type (pleasant and unpleasant) and intensity (high-energy and low-energy). Then, you get a list of emotions to select from with definitions of how each emotion feels. This part was revealing as I realised that I had a very limited palette of what I thought I was feeling, and I managed to extend it and label my emotions better over time. Check-in ends with a short reflection on what I was doing when I had that feeling and what could have caused my sensation with the possibility of inserting a photo. Over time, this short reflection helped me better understand my emotions, and I loved scrolling back and seeing the photos that described my emotions at different moments in life.
Part of this system is the notification to check-in. Besides the usual reminder setting, I loved that you could select “surprise me at random times.” I opted for this to track my emotions over a wider range of time and spot patterns more easily. After a month of usage, though, I wonder how the mechanism behind smart notifications works: do they look at patterns and optimise for the best time to send a notification at an individual level for a higher likelihood of logging an emotion? Looking at my data, I noticed that I often check in around 20:00, but I keep getting prompts at various times during the day.
Another thing I loved was that I could do my first check-in during the onboarding after downloading the app, so I had the chance to see how easy it is to log emotions early on, having a very short time to initial value.
Is HMF helping users to navigate hard feelings in the moment?
Yes, for learning ways and emotional regulation strategies in general, but I’m not so convinced how they help me in the moment.
They do offer tools (e.g., breathing exercises, quotes, movement and mindfulness videos, reframing strategies, and interactive exercises to help improve your sense of self-worth), and I loved that I could add the tools I enjoyed, quotes I found inspiring, or exercises I did to my own space at the top of the page, where I could see them all the time and have quick access to them.
I also liked that I was gradually unlocking lessons and strategies the more check-ins I did. The lessons in video format were always very high quality but felt general and random. I’m unsure how much they personalise them based on the check-ins users do, where they struggle the most, and what practices or strategies would be the most helpful for them to try out.
Is HMF helping users spot patterns to regulate their emotions in healthier ways?
Not sure about this one either.
I found it compelling to track my emotions together with my sleep, exercise, steps, cycles, meditation time, and weather. I was very curious to see what insights I would be able to gather.
They neatly visualise your statistics and weekly summaries with different types of breakdowns: emotions felt most often, mood during the day or week, what I was doing when I had different emotions, daily steps, and weather and how I felt, etc. I had the data, but the beautiful visualisation wasn’t enough for me to spot patterns and turn them into actionable insights. I was struggling to interpret what I was seeing to start making some changes to make my “emotions work for me, not against me”. I expected to get some recommendations in the form of tips & tools based on the data I logged.
Conclusion
The app is simple and beautifully designed. The visuals are strong, all assets are of high quality, and at the core, HMF has an amazing structure and interaction design, making navigation and using the app a true delight. I believe they have more work to do in order to deliver on their promise of being a full emotional management app, not just emotional tracking. They are definitely on the right track, and by using the app, you do learn how to identify and describe what you feel better, but as they also say, emotions are complex, and dealing with them can be difficult, so I believe they need to provide more guidance about how to spot patterns and give individual recommendations based on data and emotional intelligence science. Regular practice and tools might give ways to deal with difficult situations in the moment, but I wonder if there are other things an app could do to detect triggers earlier and support humans in becoming emotionally mature and healthy?