Echoes

Inspiration

Echoes is inspired by past step, sleep, and heart rate trackers. We have reliable, passive ways to measure these aspects of the human experience, yet we are still left with digital diaries to understand our emotions and the feeling of being inside our own history. Echoes arose as an app to turn nostalgia into a tool for mental wellness. Reflecting on major nostalgia tied to impactful moments has been shown to increase feelings of optimism, social connectedness, and hope for the future. ¹

¹ Cheung et al. (2013). Back to the Future: Nostalgia Increases Optimism. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9714426

What it does

Echoes is a system that captures subtle sensory signals throughout your day and maps the patterns that shape your emotional memory. By passively collecting environmental data through a synced pendant and mobile app, Echoes reveals the hidden triggers behind nostalgic moments and emotional shifts.

How we built it

Before designing, we researched different human senses. Rather than settle on a singular sense, our team decided to focus on multiple typically unconsidered and unmeasured senses, such as scent and hearing, that contribute to our emotional experience. Additionally, we discovered research on the potentially healing powers of nostalgia, which we decided on as the concept for our app, Echoes.

With this concept in mind, we created personas to understand who our audience for Echoes is with the help of Claude. Next, we searched for stylistic inspiration that conveyed the same mood as our vision for Echoes. Finally, the design and prototyping phases were primarily done with Figma Design, along with the help of Figma Make for guiding the design of certain elements.

Challenges we ran into

One challenge we ran into while building Echoes was coordinating meeting times. As FigBuild coincided with our spring break, our team was not able to meet in person. Additionally, we lost time to work on the projects due to flights and traveling. We navigated this challenge through utilizing asynchronous communication and individual work.

Another challenge we faced was learning Figma Make. Our goal in using this tool was to streamline our work and save time. However, because our team had little experience with Figma Make, we had to set aside time to understand the tool's limitations and learn how to compose prompts.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud to have completed Echoes in such a short time frame while traveling. We are also proud to have created the animations. Neither of us had much experience animating within Figma, but through trial and error, we created a dynamic version of the Echoes logo and pendant connection icon.

What we learned

While building Echoes, our team learned how to execute the design process from ideation to prototyping. Prior to FigBuild, we had experience with portions of the UX design process, but this project is what tied it all together. Before picking up a pencil, we motivated our choices with research papers, possible use cases, and outside feedback, ensuring that the project had a strong foundation before we built it up.

What's next for Echoes

Next, we hope to test Echoes with users to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the user experience. Although this app is rooted in technology that does not yet exist, Echoes serves as a powerful learning tool for understanding UX and product design.

Built With

• figma