With a peaceful exercise and a duration selected from the two drop-down menus, the user of the app establishes a daily practice goal, for example, “I will enjoy tea mindfully for five minutes each day.”
The user presses the “start timer” button, and the timer counts down silently while the user does her daily practice. When the timer has elapsed, a pleasant harp sound alerts her that her daily practice is complete. She brings her attention back to the screen of the smartphone, and she silences the harp with the push of a button. Then an “update habit tracker” button appears, and she presses it with her finger.
The habit tracker is the predominant feature of the app, a vertical strip with two halves: one half corresponding to the seven daily circles on side two of the paper prescription, the other half corresponding to the strip of seven smiley face stickers. Except these smiley faces aren’t yellow. They’re gray. And they’re not smiling. Their mouths are little straight lines running sideways across their faces.
The user pushes the “update habit tracker” button, and the face for that day turns from gray to yellow as its flat expression morphs into an upward curving smile. This smiley face animation is the electronic translation of the peel-and-apply tracking system at the heart of the paper prescription, minus the stickiness. The tiny golden smile-burst is accompanied by a peaceful musical flourish, a warm and congratulatory tingle, like how a magic wand tinkles when shaken. When the app is used on a regular basis, this daily peaceful sound forms the audible pulse of the electronic prescription.
No comments:
Post a Comment