Our hectic everyday lives and coping with its difficulties can often overwhelm us to the point that we cannot cope. When faced with challenges, we often feel the need to talk through the situation with someone who can offer compassion, understanding or simply a different perspective on the matter. Although confiding in others has been shown to have a positive impact on our mental state, personal relationships can inevitably result in a combination of positive as well as negative interactions, such as criticism, demands and misunderstandings. Mario Luis Small, a sociologist at Harvard, revealed in his research that while people said they were most likely to turn to their inner circle for emotional support, they in fact shared their concerns last with people on a plane, at the hairdressers, or a stranger in a waiting room. Apart from avoiding those closest to us because they may have preconceived notions about our past and future, or because we simply don‘t want to bother them, they may not be able to empathize with our situation. People crave empathy more than they fear being hurt.
Talktome is a mobile app that connects you with strangers around the world who want to empathize and listen to your problems. It offers you the safety of an anonymous conversation without having to worry about being judged or critiqued. The app‘s user interface is based on prototypes I created beforehand and includes features that meet the users‘ needs - such as security and privacy, without requiring users to reveal personal information. The user experience was the top priority in this case and was determined through processes such as usability testing and storyboarding. This project was developed as part of the course „Pretty is not everything“, an introductory course in user experience design, where we had to develop a concept for an app based solely on the needs of the users.
