NovaNotes

Logo
Constellations to be filled
Partly formed stars

Inspiration

We approached this hackathon with the mindset of broadly exploring what space means to us. This led us to grapple with the concept of emotional space and how we distinguish between the inner and outer aspects of our emotions. After researching a lesser known method of writing called therapeutic journaling, we felt that representations of our thoughts had natural ties to the stars above in our night sky. We eventually arrived on the idea of NovaNotes, a novel web application that facilitates the process of therapeutic journaling to help people overcome personal obstacles.

What is therapeutic journaling?

The core concept of therapeutic journaling involves taking emotionally difficult experiences and spilling unfiltered thoughts out into the world through repeated writing sessions. Therapeutic journaling is relatively unknown in comparison to practices like traditional diary writing, while also being clinically shown to improve physical and psychological health and is suitable for both clinical and non-clinical populations. The writing protocol asks a user to write about a single stressful or upsetting event for 15-20 minutes over the course of four consecutive days. Each writing session is intended to be uninterrupted and upon completion, users are given the choice to destroy their writing.

About NovaNotes

Our novel web application integrates the guidelines of therapeutic journaling into a satisfying experience that facilitates the adoption of this beneficial writing method into our regular lives. Each writing topic is represented by a glowing star and users can progress the life cycle of the star by completing subsequent writing sessions. At the completion of a topic, users have a choice to let go of their writing by having their star go supernova. Reminders can be sent through email encourage consistent journaling. After several completions of topics/stars, users will see their night sky light up as a vibrant constellation.