How get mothers to express her true feelings?

Momii is a personalized journaling mobile app designed to help users build a meaningful daily writing habit. Users capture memories through text, voice recordings (with speech-to-text), photos, videos, and handcrafted Postcards, all stored in a personal cloud-backed space.

MY ROLE

Market Research
Architecture
Founding Product Design

TEAM

1 Product Designer work with PO
Product Marketers, Engineers

PLATFORM

App Mobile

CONTEXT

Running successfully a platform of specialized healthcare solutions, my client embraced a solution for the mental health of those who need care, such as mothers and the elderly. With the diary app market in Vietnam still having many gaps, the company has decided to embark on the journey to bridge the gap.

Build a journaling mobile app that helps users develop a daily writing habit. Momii is more than just text entries. Users can record memories using voice recordings (including speech-to-text), photos and videos, and handcrafted postcards, all stored in a personal cloud-backed space.

0->1 DESIGN PROCESS

Research Approach

In order to map out the entire emotional and behavioral landscape of the target Vietnamese mothers balancing the conflict between caring for others and caring for oneself, I conducted contextual interviews rather than asking potential users about their journaling habits or product preferences. Additionally, I studied one of the Big as Day One in-depth based on recommendations from The New York Times, Forbes, Time, and other market competitors.

Contextual Interviews

Conduct in-depth contextual interviews with target users around the topic "The hidden worries and concerns behind motherhood." Questions spanned 3 behavioral dimensions:

Daily Routines & Physical Habits

Self-Care & Emotional Expression

Reflection Practices

KEY INSIGHT 1

Reflecting is already happening, just not captured

Mothers already reflect at the end of the day, they mentally review, talk to their partners or journal late at night but these moments are fragmented and leave no lasting record. The app doesn’t need to teach users how to reflect, it needs to make capturing that reflection frictionless.

KEY INSIGHT 2

Evening is a precious window; let it stay open.

The most often answer to the question "How many hours do you spend for yourself in the evening?" was 1-2 hours with passive consumption (phone, TV). Any journaling interaction that takes more than a few minutes can be abandoned. This was directly reflected in the multi-modal input design, is a 10-second-voice note should be valid a-500-word entry.

KEY INSIGHT 3

Mothers feel emotionally charged by self-reflection

The questions about emotional sharing and self-observation revealed that many mothers believe they have put parts of themselves away since becoming parents. A journaling app for this audience is not a productivity tool; rather, it is a permission slip to remember who they are outside of motherhood. This realization solidified Momii's warm, feminine visual direction as an unavoidable design requirement.

Competitive Landscape

Notable apps in the journaling space reviewed during discovery: Day One, Daylio, Journey, ..

COMPETITIVE GAP

Most apps today are either text heavy (driving away casual users) or mood tracker light (too shallow for deep reflection). No one combined a warm aesthetic, multi-modal input and playful content discovery (swipe/scroll/calendar) into one cohesive experience.

Problem Statement

Build a journaling habit often stop journaling not due to lack of motivation but because the medium itself creates friction. Blank text editors feel clinical, physical journals are easy to forget, and existing apps don’t make the experience feel personal or rewarding.

PROBLEM 1

Blank-page

Users don't know how or where to start a journal entry, especially on low-energy days.

PROBLEM 2

Text-only input is limiting

Real memories include sound, images, and emotion that plain text cannot fully capture.

PROBLEM 3

Passive storage, not active memory — most apps store entries but don't make it easy or delightful to revisit them.

@ 2026 Designed by Rimi Phan