Practice | A Yoga Journal
UX / RESEARCH / PRINT
Yoga is a life-changing practice and journey to self-discovery for many. In this project, I set out to create an artifact that every yogi could use. Whether it be a long-time practitioner or newb, this journal is designed to aid yogis in their practice through class breakdowns and self-reflection exercises.
Process
The problem
In my yoga teacher training, we were encouraged to journal about our yoga practice. Many did not because it seemed daunting and they just didn't know where to begin. I jumped at the opportunity to combine two of my passions: yoga and design.
User research
In d.school's design thinking mixtape, we start with understanding and empathizing with our user. I interviewed four women to get the process going. I asked two simple questions:
Tell me your yoga story.
Do you keep a journal? Why or why not?
Those two questions ignited candid conversations that lasted over an hour. Hearing women talk about their journey of discovery and change brought tears to my eyes— I knew I was going to create something that could really make a difference.
I listened intently to uncover the real user need: some interviewees were looking for an activity to ease their physical pain, most searching for a reason to be active and workout. One of my interviewees said, “I asked myself, What is like working out but not really working out? Yoga!!”
As I was interviewing, all claimed yoga was a transformational process and helped better equip them for their daily lives. Yoga is more than what you experience on the mat; it is something that helps you learn how to hold space for yourself and others. All struggled from some form of anxiety (social anxiety, panic attacks, fear of not being accepted, or day dreaming about crazy scenarios that would most likely never happen).
All users longed for a prompt or a directive, and that a blank page can sometimes be overwhelming. They believed that setting an intention, either for the day or the month, was foundational. They wanted something to go back to and look on to see their intention evolve over time and something to remind them of things they processed on the mat. Writing out goals was important too.
Synthesize
After the interviews, I found myself with a lot of information to digest. This is the time to slow down and dig into the data. I had so many ideas floating around in my head and I just wanted to get to nitty gritty designing. But skipping ahead only leads to thoughts I may have missed.
To help organize my thoughts, I wrote down commonalities from interviews and important facts on Post-It notes. This is part of the brainstorming process where I can physically see similarities in front of me and group them together.
The physicality of this part helps me to converge the information and data collected from user interviews to discover common interests.
Persona and empathy mapping
Creating a persona helps me humanize who I am designing for. Elle is a culmination of all the people I interviewed with a little bit of imagination inspired through research.
Meet Elle, a 25-year old yogi who lives in Boulder, CO. She started practicing yoga to help her process through grief and to inspire movement within herself. She wishes she had kept a journal from the beginning of her practice so she could tangibly read how far she had come.
Ideate
Here are the "How Might We" questions I asked myself:
HMW create a journal that people want to write in?
HMW guide a person in segments?
HMW make writing the most exciting part?
HMW entirely remove the pain of writing?
HMW make a “blank page” feel less daunting?
HMW encourage a yogi off the mat?
HMW make a person feel more connected to their thoughts?
HMW help a person process their emotions?
HMW make a blank page less daunting?
HMW help someone define their goals?
HMW “hold space” for someone without even being there?
Rapid prototyping
In my opinion, paper prototypes are super duper fun. It's the moment when you finally get to see all of your hard work and research tangibly in front of you for the first time.
Research — Round 2
From here, I set up second interviews with people I met with in the beginning and some new folks. I asked them to flip through the book and tell me the first things that came to their mind.
Every user liked the "class work" to be on the left side, as it felt more natural to start that way.
Every user liked the simplicity and peacefulness of the cover and that it didn't have a cheesy quote or image on it.
Two users thought an introduction page, sort of like a how-to guide, would be helpful in the beginning.
One user wished there was more philosophy of yoga.
Users found verbiage to be a bit confusing- either use first person only or third person only.
Some users preferred third person because it felt less intimidating.
One user suggested the meditation exercises be short and beginner friendly.
Some quotes from my interviews were:
"Right off the bat, I love it."
"Oh my gosh, this is so fun!"
"Are you going sell to this? Can I buy it from you?"
Interestingly enough, every user asked me if I was going to make this journal a business and when they could buy it. I took this as a good sign that I was headed in the right direction.
And yet again, more research
After a substantial amount of research and time spent getting to know my audience, I started to research more yoga philosophy and spent some time on how I could word prompts, exercises, and questions without making assumptions about someone's life, being judgemental, or wording things negatively. I kept a master sheet in Google Docs that helped keep me organized with the types of exercises that would be designed.
Design o’clock
And now, finally.... design o'clock. I started sketching layouts, researching journal sizes, and making sure the line spaces would be the perfect size for someone with large handwriting and someone with small handwriting. No detail was overlooked. And then, countless hours were spent in front of my little Macbook, editing pages over and over and over again until I was satisfied with the results.
To the Printer
I worked with an amazing woman, Monique, at MinuteMan Press who helped me figure out the binding. The journal was quite long, so a traditional saddle-stitch would have caused a lot of bending and would not allow the book to close shut. Holding the first major test print in my hand was nothing short of magical. It was one of the first times in my life that I actually felt like something I designed could really change the way a person thinks about themselves.
