Rationale

Our app is designed for children aged 7-8 who have Post Traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The app turns boring exercises for reducing stress and anxiety into interactive games which utilise the camera, microphone, accelerometer and gyroscope. Each of the three worlds has an iteration of the exercises but with different learning outcomes, for example the first breathing game “balloon” teaches them diaphragmatic breathing while the last breathing game “seeds” teaches them to breathe steadily and evenly. The unlocking of worlds and earning points and stickers also give children an incentive to keep playing. Because it’s for children, the app is designed to be fun and colourful with mostly calming blues and greens, the buttons are larger and the language kept minimal and we used diagrams to illustrate any actions needed. Background music increases immersion and relaxation.

We designed the app to work alongside traditional therapy. This reduces stress for the parent by creating an engaging way to teach the children ways to manage their anxiety between sessions. It can also connect with the Therapist and send them the pictures the children have drawn to help the therapist monitor their patient’s mind frame between sessions.

Adding in the stickers and the loading pages

I decided to add in the sticker element that we were debating about. They act as rewards when you complete an exercise and you can drag them to anywhere on the world's main pages and personalise them.

 I also finished the loading pages for saving the drawings....

Map finished

It also has the updated nav bar

I made little icons for each world that you can click on

I also made the 'locked' ones greyed out and showing how many stars you need to open them.

Final world pages

 Here are the final world pages

I re-did the nav bar at the bottom so the buttons are larger and use icons instead of words

I also changed the balloon from red to blue as i thought that calming colours were better

Background music

Our app would have different background musics for each world but they would all be relaxing music used for meditation.

For the forest world:



For the ocean world:


For the Meadow one:

Settings page

 I finished the settings page including a security pop up for connecting with the therapist...

 I wanted to make it even simpler do i got rid of the big boxed and coloured the backgound to make it less formal /serious looking

Final:
 I changed the colour of the off switch so it looked likt they were off, i also moved it down because i thought it looked better and made the buttons easier to reach

I also changed the icon on the map page to a gears icon as the others weren't as clear and we are reducing text

final

Added icons to the draw games

I realised that I forgot to add a 'complete' button to the draw pages and also needed to add a slider and paintbrush icon to the colour picker. I thought a slider would be easier than swatches for a child to use and gives more colour options.

 Initially I has a horizontal slider, but then it was in the way of the finish button...

I was also plying around with the size of the slider, and even though this one is less obtrusive, it is harder to use because it is smaller...
I chose the larger slider for the final because children can have clumsy fingers, it also only appears when picking  colour so i decided that the space it takes up doesn't really matter.