Emotiverse

Music has been used for centuries by ancient cultures to improve well-being and happiness. Research has shown that listening to music has significant health benefits by reducing anxiety, which can lower the risk of various health problems such as depression. University students often confront high levels of stress and anxiety from academic pressures and personal experiences, which adversely affect their mental and physical health. Despite the awareness of these negative emotions, they often struggle to find healthy coping mechanisms to manage and alleviate these unwanted feelings.

To address this issue, we offer a unique approach that includes music, social interaction, and mood tracking within a metaverse. Our mood tracking system helps users identify and reflect on their emotions, while simultaneously use to generate personalized playlists to improve or maintain their emotions. Additional features, like avatar customization and engaging with other users, create an extraordinary experience that will further help regulate emotions and increase productivity among college students.

The goal of our design research aimed to understand how people engage with music and their experience with existing music applications. We conducted semi-structured interviews with four college students who interact with existing music applications regularly. This method allowed us to gather data on their music listening habits, preferences, and experiences. Additionally, we conducted secondary research to better understand the current market and its existing applications. Our goal was to gather insights and find commonalities among functions the participants find useful or need improvements. Then, use these commonalities to help us design a new application that combines music and mood that better meets our audiences needs and desires.

Our heuristics evaluation and usability testing revealed participants confusions about the location of the generated playlist based on their mood, as it was originally placed on the mood tracking screen instead of the music screen where many participants expected it to be. Due to this placement, many participants were confused as to what the playlist was at all. To resolve this, the playlist was moved to the music screen and a shortcut was added to access this generated playlist through the homepage via a button. Furthermore, a participant pointed out that swiping left and right was inconvenient to find a specific playlist, especially if they have a lot of different playlists. As a result, the screen layout was redesigned to improve accessibility. The buttons within our entire app are also labeled for clarity.

In our usability testing, the feedback revealed users wanted more control and flexibility with the process of entering speaker and study mode. Our original design combined the connecting process of both the speaker and study mode to be within the same screen, which restricted the useability for participants who wanted to only connect to the speaker or study mode and not both. To improve this, we separated the process of connecting to the speaker and study mode into different screens, while adding shortcuts to the other within each screen. For example, adding the option to connect to the speaker within study mode. This also allowed us to add shortcuts on the home screen for an easier process of connecting to the speaker or enter study mode. Another problem found by our participants was regarding the process of connecting to the speaker. Initially, we designed this process to give the user the flexibility of selecting a different background and animation for the character every time. However, from the feedback we received, this process can be troublesome and become a distraction. To address this issue, we give the option for the user to set a default background and animation on the setting page and remove the prompt to customize the speaker display when connecting. This insight enhanced user control and flexibility, while providing a more seamless user experience.

Our final key insight highlighted the importance of incentives. Usability testing and class critique feedback revealed adding a rewards system can motivate the users to continue using our application. To address this issue, we added a currency-based rewards system for inputting mood or studying for a set amount of period. Users can spend this currency to buy customization for their avatars and rooms, such as hairstyles, clothes, furniture, and more. This addition improved engagement and made the application more enjoyable to use.