Inquiry: Narrowing down app idea

As part of the inquiry feedback, the TA recommended that I narrow down the topic. This blog post basically specifies the process I used to pin point an app idea, and maybe outline some app requirements/ user stories at the end!

Let’s decide on an app idea

I’ve been an avid reader of the https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/ sub-reddit, users would tell success stories of how they discovered a problem and designed a solution for it. I found that for many of these success stories, the founder would follow a similar process:

• Decide on category the app would fall under
• Find a problem they face almost everyday
• Imagine an app that would provide a solution, that’s your app idea!

App Category

I know that for my own application, I want to build something in the self-help space. Next step would be to find a problem that I face almost everyday.

Find a problem

This is honestly the hard part, I find that as someone who grew up with a smartphone, every single problem I have, I have already downloaded an app for it. A good example is Opal, the screen time management app. I had some problems with managing and decreasing my screen time a couple years back; Opal provided an app blocker for iOS that solves my problem perfectly!

So back to reddit and Thread to find an inspiration… Finally, I came up with something, I was super hungry; but I cannot decide what I want for dinner or where do I want to go for dinner. I tried to break down what I was doing before feeling hungry, maybe noting down my mood, then try to remember what I ate the last time I did something similar. After 15 minutes of intense recollection, I had sushi, so I decided to go grab some.

I distinctly remembered on the way to grab sushi, I was thinking if there is an application that allows for the user to log what mood they were experiencing, and then what action they took, and then allow for the user to reflect on the mood-action combo afterwards. It was vague but this is it! My app idea!

Imagine an app

A self-help application that allows for the user to log their mood, and what action they took associated to their mood. And then reflect on whether that mood-action combo was positive or negative at the end of the day. Then the next time the user goes in the app and try to decide what to do, they can see what positive action they did the last time they felt that way.

i.e. If I feels hungry while scrolling Threads, ends up deciding to eats sushi. If to me that was a positive interaction, the next time I input hungry while scrolling Threads in the app, I get suggested to go eat sushi!