The Garden
Garden is a calming journaling app that helps users build mindful writing habits through nature-inspired visuals and gentle reminders. Turning thoughts into a growing digital garden. 🌱
What I did
Competitive Analysis, User Research, Information Architecture, Mobile Design, Usability Study & Design Language
My role
UX/UI Designer
Tools Used
Figma, Miro, Photoshop
Time Frame
June 10th 2025- August 11th 2025
The Problem:
How could we help people make journaling feel less like a chore and help you express you reflect, and express yourself more naturally?
1. Lack of Emotional Engagement: Most apps feel too cold, clinical, or goal-oriented. Users crave a deeper, more personal experience.
2. Inconsistent Habits: Many people start journaling, but quickly lose motivation due to rigid structures or boring interfaces.
3. No Sense of Progress or Reflection: Entries disappear into a digital void, and users don’t see or feel growth over time.
4. Generic Experiences: One-size-fits-all layouts and prompts fail to connect with diverse moods or intentions.
The Background:
A lot of people want to journal, but sticking with it is tough. Life gets busy, the blank page can be intimidating, and most journaling apps feel too stiff or boring. Without encouragement or a sense of progress, it’s easy to lose motivation.
The Industry
The global mental wellness app market was valued at $5.2 billion in 2022, expected to reach $17.5 billion by 2030.
(Source: Grand View Research)
Apps like Reflectly and Day One have reached over 5 million downloads each, proving sustained user demand.
43% of Gen Z and Millennials use mobile apps to track or manage their mental health.
(Source: Deloitte 2023 Wellness Survey)
The Challenge
While working on the Garden app, I followed the Double Diamond Strategy (Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver) to help guide the design process. This method enabled me to explore more creative ideas while staying focused on real user needs and ensuring that every decision supported a more thoughtful and inviting journaling experience.
The iterative process of Designing "Garden"
When working on My Garden app, I have adopted the Double Diamond Strategy, which breaks the design process into four stages: Discover, Define, Deliver & Develop. I found this process particularly powerful in validating design decisions, allowing enough space for creative exploration while giving a focus point to come back to.
Discover
What apps are out there?
I conducted Competitive analysis on Day One and Reflectly with focus on UX analysis: to evaluate their navigation, layout and general usability. This helped me understand what My Garden app needs to provide to stand out from it’s competition:I conducted Competitive analysis on Day One and Reflectly with focus on UX analysis: to evaluate their navigation, layout and general usability. This helped me understand what My Garden app needs to provide to stand out from it’s competition:
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Complex for casual users(Day One)
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Lacking traditional entry writing features(Reflectly)
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Lets users connect with other Journals(lacking in both)
User Research:
Can you walk me through the process of journaling
It was time to learn what real journalers thought about the process and what challenges they faced. With preliminary research in hand, I conducted 4 user interviews with people at different levels of journaling experience.
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My research goals were:
1. To understand general attitudes and motivations around journaling.
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2. To uncover common struggles people face when trying to journal consistently.
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3. To learn if (and how) they use any tools, apps, or websites to support their journaling practice.
Research Analysis Moving Forward:
- Users prioritize ease of use and emotional comfort over advanced features. They want an experience that feels calm, private, and intuitive rather than overwhelming or productivity-driven.
- Aesthetic appeal and tone matter a lot; the app must feel like a safe, nurturing space rather than another task on their to-do list.
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- People are less concerned with formal journaling techniques or structure and more focused on self-expression and emotional release.
Empathising with people who enjoy journaling.
Talking to people who enjoy journaling gave me an understanding of their needs & goals. So I created a persona that sums it all up.
User Journeys:
What would Josh's experience be with My Garden
Informed by each persona’s experiences, attitudes, and goals, I created a User Journey Map to outline the processes needed to achieve their individual goals within My Garden journaling app. This helped me identify key emotional moments and potential friction points users may encounter while journaling, reflecting, or tracking their progress. By mapping these experiences, I was able to focus on critical pain points.
User Flow:
How would Josh go about starting his journaling journey?
I set out to map out their User flows. This step helped me keep the design user-centered by showing me which pages or screens of the app would be needed from the perspective of my user personas.
Objective:
- As someone seeking mindfulness and emotional clarity, I want to use The Garden Journaling App to record my thoughts and feelings daily, allowing me to reflect on my growth, track my moods, and cultivate a healthier mindset.
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Entry Point:
Create an account in the app​.
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Success Criteria:
The user is to consistently journal and feel a sense of emotional growth and mindfulness through the My Garden app without it feeling like a chore.
Task Analysis:
1. Make an account in the app
2. User successfully creates an account and completes their first journal entry.
User sets a reminder or goal for consistent journaling.
3. User engages with mindful and reflective prompts.
4. User can review past entries and visualize progress (mood tracker or reflection summary).
5. User feels emotionally lighter or more mindful after journaling.
Mobile First Approach:
What to design first
From the initial research, the user persona &
user flow. I was able to identify some main features of the app that users would enjoy.
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1. Straight to the point app
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2. An app that doesn’t feel like a chore but more like self-care.
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3. Have the option to read/ connect with other users who want to share their journal.
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4. Gentle daily reminder. To be reminded at a set time when it’s most convenient for you to journal.
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5. Mood-based themes.
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- According to studies and interviews
- People journal most often at night or first thing in the morning
-They value privacy, simplicity, and mood awareness.
-Consistency > depth — most entries are short
-70–80% of journaling app usage occurs on mobile devices.
-Micro-journaling is the fastest-growing journaling habit, and it’s mobile-first by nature.
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Development
Development
Wireframing:
During usability testing, we discovered that users wanted more support when it came to journaling inspiration and consistency. Many participants expressed that they like the option to randomly generate a topic to write about, but also receive personalized suggestions when they forgot to journal. Based on this insight, we decided to introduce two new features.
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Notifications and location services: Users can now allow My Garden to suggest potential prompts related to places they visited that day by enabling notifications and location settings. This feature helps users reconnect with meaningful daily moments and lowers the barrier to journaling when they’re unsure where to start.
Learning from usability testing:
Problems and decisions
Designing the look and feel of My Garden.
The My Garden journaling app helps users reflect on their thoughts, process emotions, and track personal growth over time. Its prompts and suggestions make it easy to overcome writer’s block and explore new ideas. By visualizing entries as a “garden,” users can see their progress and celebrate achievements. Connecting with others adds perspective, encouragement, and the opportunity to learn from shared experiences.
The purpose of this style guide was to use colors and styles that resembled earthly palettes. In doing so, I was able to develop a consistent hierarchy while maintaining a soft and inviting garden theme.
DELIVER
Where you can clear your thoughts and connect with others.
Welcome to My Garden
Let's select a day and commitment level
Customize your experience
Think less write more!
Learnings & Challenges
A design is never finished:
The next steps.
Adding a Favorites category to the primary features so users can easily revisit past entries of themselves and others. The next iteration of My Garden will concentrate on designing, testing, and adding a Favorites feature, starting with the following hypothesis:
We believe that adding a “Favorites” tab in the My Garden journaling app will increase user engagement and emotional connection by allowing journalers to easily save and revisit their most meaningful entries, as well as inspirational posts from others.
Retrospective:
What i've learned.
My Garden is a project I’ve worked on as a solo UX/UI designer, from start to finish. The process was challenging at times, but it also allowed me to have hands-on experience in each step of the design process.
Through designing the My Garden journaling app, I’ve learned to trust my own judgment while being mindful of the assumptions guiding my design decisions. I’ve found that the most valuable and inspiring stages of the process were when my concepts were tested with users and peers. Those sessions of feedback, communication, and collaboration often sparked new insights and helped shape the app into something more intuitive and meaningful. For me, true creativity in design happens in those shared moments of listening, refining, and problem-solving together.
What’s next: The My Garden journaling app will continue to grow through the voices and experiences of its users. I’m excited to return to the beginning of the design process, learning directly from traditional pen and pad journalers about their habits, challenges, and goals. And how we could make the user experience and interface more personal, engaging, and meaningful from their perspective.
