Emotional Requirements for Well-being Applications : The Customer Journey

Abstract

This study discusses the importance of well-being (WB) and the role of applications in promoting WB. While there are many applications that aim to promote WB in various aspects of daily life (e.g. healthy eating, mindfulness), most of them fail to engage users over time. This paper posits that understanding the users’ emotional needs and creating attachment between the users and the applications, are critical factors for determining user engagement. The paper shows how applying the design thinking methodology, and in particular its customer journey map (CJM) tool, to present offline and online journeys, can help scholars understand how a specific application can be used in everyday life, enabling users to become attached and engaged. The paper presents how this approach helped students cope with a challenge of creating applications for reducing stress among mentally challenged persons during a multidisciplinary workshop attended by engineering and design students.