Well - Being Winner AFGA 2012 - Feelings in a Flash
1. Feelings In A Flash!
By Elizabeth and Rebecca McPherson
Team Name - FeelingsInAFlash - An application for the Wellbeing Category
(Entered via Blackheath Coding Club – run by Rob Young and Lily Emery)
3. So…That’s the problem, how do we solve it?
• Help teenagers understand their own feelings and why these feelings change from
time to time
• Help them cope with and control their feelings
• Translate and understand what they are feeling and why they are feeling it
• Track their feelings over weeks and months
• Explain and share their feelings with others without having to be too obvious
about asking for help
6. Examples of websites we would link to
• Books and TV programmes often provide links to websites dealing with issues
raised in the content. Likewise we would link to good quality helpful sites such
as
• For the inspirational thoughts we would use existing twitter feeds…and use them to
offer different thoughts for boys, girls and those with different interests
• @Inspirational-Thoughts
• @Inspirational Women
• @Inspirational Sportstars
7. What we found from our market research
• 80% of those we spoke to thought it would be useful, interesting and most of all fun!
• Teenagers of all ages to liked it equally.
• Speed and ease of use were the most important features
• Boys would use the app as often as girls but
• were more likely to use it to share when they were happy
• were less likely to want to share feelings when they were sad –
although they would still use the app to track these feelings
• The favourite aspects of our app that our friends liked were
• you can track your feelings on the go
• you automatically receive a graph of your feelings on a weekly basis
• you are able to access relevant and useful information from the
linked websites to help cope with their feelings
Notes: Methods we used to get answers to our questions. We spoke to our friends at school, school bus, church, netball and our local clubs. 70%
of these were female and 30% male. The age range was 11-17. Everybody we spoke to said they had many different emotions everyday
and often didn't know why they were sometimes happy and sometimes sad
8. Common Worries and Concerns
• Not all teenagers have a smart phone
– More and more teenagers are getting smart phones every month
• Some friends were worried they would regret sharing something
– The default setting will be “private” so you cannot share a feeling by mistake – you
have to make a conscious effort to share
– The feelings you share with friends will disappear from the app after an hour and will
not be stored on the other person’s phone permanently
• Some worried that their shared feeling could be forwarded on to
others without them being aware
– It will not be possible to forward on shared feelings to others if you are not the
original sender
• Some adults we talked to were worried that people may use the
knowledge that you are sad to bully or hurt you
– Teenagers have always had to be careful about which of their friends they share
information with and are actually more aware today because of emails and texts
– Unlike emails and texts the shared information will not be kept on your friend’s app
permanently and therefore cannot be used months later to bully or pick on people
9. Competitors
• There are a few “Feelings” Apps on the iPhone but most of these are trying to
“guess” how you are feeling by
– scanning your finger print like Scanner Emotions
– or by holding your phone next to your skin like How Am I Feeling?
We and our friends thought these were all rubbish because they were
obviously fake and just guessing how you felt
• There are also a few apps and web-pages to help you keep calm, meditate or “let
go of negative feelings”
E.g. Calm.com that has just launched in America and plays wave sounds and
talks in a calm voice to help you meditate - - it’s all bit corny and is
focused more at adults
10. Competitors (cont)
• We think our biggest competitors at the moment are actually BBM, Text
Messages, Emails and Facebook because this is how most teenagers share their
feelings at the moment
….BUT…..unlike Feelings In A Flash…..
• There is no way to track these random messages over a month to see
how you feel over a period of time
• With each of the current ways to share - --what you say is stored there
forever
• Teenagers are extremely worried about what the consequences of this
are – at school we are warned about not putting things onto Facebook
or email that might stop us getting a job in 10 years time
11. We think our App will be extremely viral
• It will be a free App
• It will be designed to be really Easy, Fun and Simple to Use
• Hugely Shareable - - you can only get access to your friend’s feelings if you
download the App
“Elizabeth wants to share how she’s feeling right now
…click here to download Feelings In A Flash”
• What teenager wouldn’t download a free app to see what one of their best friends
was feeling
• The message asking you to download the App and see the feelings could be via
Email, Text, Google+, Twitter or Facebook
• Once the App is on your phone you will have the option to send an invite to your
phone contact list
12. Where we need help and support
• Design Advice – We think the most important area that we need to work on now is
to ensure we have a really good, teenage friendly, easy to use and really well
designed app
• We need knowledgeable adults to help us pick the best, most authoritative
websites to link to – so we are giving good quality and non judgemental advice - -
that will make teenagers use the App on a regular basis
• We also need professionally connected adults to help us work out how we give
quick, easy to read, relevant advice from the many different areas of worries and
concerns that teenagers might enter into the App comment box
• A child psychologist we spoke to said we should ensure people don’t misuse the
App to support negative behaviour like anorexia and self-harming fanpages
• We think our App will be really viral, but we would like some help to work out how
to get our first few thousand users who can then start sharing it in a viral way
• Facebook integration will be important but we are not experts on Facebook yet
13. Areas of Improvement for Version II
• Ability to share your thoughts with ALL app users completely anonymously - a
little like the website PostSecrets
• Ability to see all anonymous posts and vote them up or down a favourites table
• Get sent an automatic inspirational quote of the day – even if you don’t use the
App to note your feelings – this would remind teenagers to use the App regularly
• Weekly multiple choice survey – eg what are you most excited about / what are
you most concerned about
14. Summary
• Feelings In A Flash addresses a huge market
– 8 million teenagers in the UK
• Currently a unique App
– No current App allows teenagers to track and share their emotions
• Functionally it’s quick, easy, social and fun to use
– And should be easy to build and develop
• Enormous viral potential
– Who wouldn’t want to open up and use an App sent from a friend telling them how they
felt right now
And most importantly…..
….. a really useful App that helps teenagers cope with and
understand their feelings and therefore lead a happier,
healthier and more sustainable lifestyle.
15. And now, we’d like to share our
video with you
Can be found at
http://youtu.be/QwTKEPuSikU
18. Extra Information On Our Application
• We are founders of the Blackheath Coding Club which started in September 2011
• Eight 12-year-old girls meet every Sunday for 2 hours
• We started the club because we wanted to be able to CREATE things on our
computers and phones rather that just using what adults thought we might be
interested in
• Rob Young and Lily Emery teach us and so far we have learned html, css and some
Javascript
• Our club is part of the Coding4Kids organisation and we will also be attending the
YRS coding week during the summer - - our main focus at the moment is getting
ready for YRS Week
• We have lots of other ideas for apps that we hope to be able to build ourselves in
the next couple of years
Here is the link for our Blackheath Coding Club website that we created from scratch with our friends-
• www.Blackheath-coding-club.nfshost.com/about-us.html