Navigating Emotions with GLINT: A Gamified Approach to Mental Well-Being
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Project scope
Details
Goals
client project: deliver a mhealth app
USERS: help people suffering from Eating disorders & mental health issues to stay motivated and feel supported in their recovery
The existing emotional tracking apps often focus solely on habit tracking, food logging, or mindfulness, which can feel clinical, impersonal, and even triggering for individuals dealing with eating disorders and emotional distress. GLINT was created as a compassionate and immersive alternative, that prioritizes self-awareness, emotional growth, and non-judgmental support while maintaining a visually appealing, gamified experience.
Understanding the users & market
Market Analysis
The rise of mental health apps reflects an increasing awareness of emotional well-being, but most solutions focus on either mindfulness or productivity tracking. Few effectively support users navigating emotionally charged, complex experiences like eating disorders, which require a nuanced, sensitive approach.
Key Market Gaps:
Most apps center around habit tracking rather than emotional literacy
Existing solutions fail to provide in-the-moment support for users experiencing distress
Many rely on food-centric tracking, which can reinforce harmful behaviors rather than help users detach from food obsession and heal
GLINT was designed to bridge these gaps with an emotion-first approach, helping users build emotional literacy, recognize patterns, and develop healthier coping mechanisms.
Research & insights
Through intimate user interviews and usability tests, the real challenges people face in understanding and managing their emotions were explored. Given the sensitive nature of the topic, these interviews were approached with deep care and empathy, which reflected in the users' appreciation of the final product and involvement during the entire process.
Our findings highlighted several key insights:
Emotions Are Hard to Identify Accurately: Users struggled to name what they were feeling, often defaulting to broad terms like "stressed" or "fine"
Users Need a Non-Judgmental, Guilt-Free Space: Many apps impose “corrective” actions, which users found demotivating
Food becomes an obsession: Users expressed how between crisis, guilt feelings and their daily life, whether through binge-eating or no eating at all, food occupies their every thought. Some apps asked the user to photograph every meal and measure every ingredient which felt too intense and reinforced that obsessive feeling
Data Visualization Helps Connect Patterns: Users wanted a way to quickly grasp their emotional evolution, to understand how to grow and thrive
Translating a range of emotions
I designed a rich emotional categorization system (based on the Mood Meter research), by sorting 100 unique emotions into five categories:
High-Energy Pleasant (e.g., Excited, Empowered)
Low-Energy Pleasant (e.g., Serene, Grateful)
High-Energy Unpleasant (e.g., Anxious, Overwhelmed)
Low-Energy Unpleasant (e.g., Hopeless, Drained)
Complex & Bittersweet (e.g., Nostalgic, Melancholic)
The further from the center, the stronger the emotion. This allows the user to recognize at a glance, the type and intensity of emotion they were feeling at a given moment.
UX strategy & design process
My design process was guided by a user-centered approach, iterating through multiple rounds of prototyping and testing.
1. Iterative Prototyping and Testing:
I started with low-fidelity wireframes to map out the core functionalities, including the daily checkin, the dashboard, the content library. Through iterative testing with users, these wireframes were refined into high-fidelity prototypes, ensuring that every element was intuitive and aligned with user needs, changing for example, the entire format of the checkin process to find the one that feels most organic and natural to the users.
Check-in process: how are you feeling?
Starting with their emotion, the user can dig the how and why of their feeling to be able to understand patterns, sources of bad habits, etc…
Each user's emotions shape their personal planet, which transforms based on how often they check in and their emotional states.
This turns self-reflection into a motivating and immersive experience.
Following flows & UI design
Whilst this app isn't a game, it needs game-like elements and aspects to create motivation, making the user checkin more often and with more details. The better and the more often the check-ins, the more accurate the results will be in allowing the user to discover their patterns.
1. UI elements
Interactive elements are showing blur effects, glows & animations. With actions like tapping, pressing and sliding, this reinforce the gaming-like experience of the app
2. Emergency support:
Through research, I identified a crucial need for real-time intervention during distressing moments. The Emergency Support Flow provides instant help by guiding users through:
A calming exercise, using visual and haptic feedback to decenter the attention and focus on the body's feelings
Quick access to helplines, connecting users with professional support when needed.
This Provides immediate relief . It Encourages users to self-regulate in the moment, but also to get access to the exact type of help they need, however bad the crisis is. They can choose if one exercise was helpful so that Glint will recommend helpful every time
Dashboard: visualizing emotional trends
The dashboard provides a high-level overview of the user’s emotional state over time, reinforcing self-awareness and growth. It features:
A dynamic emotion timeline, showing fluctuations in color-coded emotion intensity.
Planet evolution snapshots, allowing users to see how their check-ins have shaped their world and how ofte they explore.
Insights on recurring emotions, helping users recognize patterns and triggers (eg: 'drinking coffee tends to make you feel better when stressing out, allow yourself a nice break during your day').
Unlike traditional health dashboards that focus on rigid metrics, Glint’s soft, intuitive visuals make self-reflection welcoming and engaging.
Final thoughts & future steps
Glint redefines the way we approach eating disorder recovery, shifting from rigid tracking to emotional exploration, self-awareness, and real-time support. By centering emotions first, introducing gamified motivation, and creating a safe, non-judgmental space, Glint provides a truly user-centered experience.
Next steps:
Refining the Dashboard: Exploring additional ways to visualize emotional patterns.
Enhancing the Visual Evolution System: Testing how users respond to different planet transformation mechanics.
Expanding Crisis Support: Incorporating personalized crisis interventions based on check-in history.
To sum up
Glint was a fascinating project to craft. The raw and touching interviews we conducted gave us a deep sense of responsibility to create something truly meaningful—a tool that not only helps users reflect on their emotions but also supports them without guilt or pressure.