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Context

  • I used to sell a guided, physical journal on Amazon.
  • People loved it, but rarely used it.
  • I love voice notes: I have a phone full of voice memos for myself.
  • When I saw GPT-4 come out, I wondered: could the future of journaling be voice powered, and interactive?

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I made a guided journal, called Go Journal, and sold it on Amazon. Despite selling $47k of them, customers struggled to build a habit of journaling. The simple-question-and-answer formula got journaling down to a 3-5 minute exercise. It wasn't good enough. That was the seed that became HeyOK.

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The start

  • A whole new world. What was even possible with journaling? Does anyone care anymore? I did some user research to find out.
  • A saturated space. Just about every slice of journaling has been tried before. UX research and market research showed that just about every combination of journaling that can be tried, has been tried.
  • A new moment. I decided against building a journaling app at all, until two pieces of technology changed my mind: GPT 4 and Whisper (highly accurate transcription AI). Together, they could unlock the first fundamentally different journaling experience since mobile phones: a truly interactive audio journal. Talk to your journal, just like you're talking to a friend or therapist.

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I found journalers on userresearch.com and prioritized their unsolved problems

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Early explorations

  • ‍Focus on audio. The biggest difference between HeyOK and all other journaling apps is that it transcribes and replies to you as you speak. You can journal by talking, instead of typing. How might we focus the experience around that interaction?
  • Double down on templates. The best part of Go Journal, the physical journal I sold, was that it added just enough structure for you to journal within 3-5 minutes. Simple templates still offer a ton of value. Lean into them.
  • Dream big, start small. As a designer building my own product, the constraints of needing to learn how to build everything forced me to start really small. Despite big ideas on audio, I started with a simple mobile-web proof of concept: just text, no audio.
I was inspired by the extreme focus of Shazam: focus on one interaction on the home screen. In my case: just get people talking, as soon as possible.

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The product today

  • The core product works: You journal by talking and your journaling AI will reply with questions that help you dig deeper and explore your feelings.
  • I'm onboarding early customers and seeing what they do with it.
From left: Sign up, onboarding and the home screen. The focus remains on getting people speaking as soon as possible.
Core journaling experiences. From left: Entering a template, typing a reply, and speaking a reply.

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Early research insights

  • When people are engaged, they stop looking at their phone screen and look off into space.
  • Speed is paramount: people initially thought the audio was so slow that it wasn't loading. A huge amount of effort has gone into making an audio reply happen in less than 5 seconds (it used to take over 15). The eventual goal is less than one second.
  • I'm still learning how people want to use it: I expect to tailor the product to early-stage users to nail one use case, but am launching this version of the product to discover what that use case is.

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Here, a friend and early tester is speaking into the phone, but not looking at it anymore. This has been really consistent user behavior.
Another example of an early tester looking away from his phone once he starts journaling deeply.

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What's next for HeyOK

  • A lot of people think that they don't journal.
  • I disagree! I think that every time you look at old photos, you're reminiscing and reflecting.
  • I want HeyOK to be the best place to do that.
  • Future explorations are about turning your photo library into animations, so it feels like your memories come to life.
  • HeyOK seeks to be the home for all the context users' use to remember their life: writing, photos, and locations.
  • That's my best guess right now, but usage will drive where I take this next.
Exploration of integrating all of a user's memory ephemera: writing, photos and locations. Templates at the top of the screen give users a way to journal quickly. Sticky entry creation buttons ensure that adding more thinking is easily accessible. Live photos play in a loop: motion helps you feel like you are reliving the scene. The gradient at the top of the screen responds to the time of day to mimic outside light conditions.

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HeyOK

Journaling is wonderful for you. But it's hard work: writing and typing are slow. So I made HeyOK, an iOS app where you journal with your voice. Just start talking, and HeyOK will transcribe your note and reply to your message with prompts that validate your emotions, help you vent, and help you find new perspective.

Client:
Self
Duration:
July 2023 → Present
Team:
Solo - Designed and built myself
Platform:
iOS
Live site:
View now

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