I wanted to create something that would provide tools for emotional regulation and self-reflection to children; to introduce these topics to people early in life with the hope that this knowledge will help build resilience and maintain self-esteem. The user profile for this project is children in afterschool programs or daycares that are creatively and artistically inclined. I was one of these kids; my parents worked, and I was often in these after-school and summer programs. I was always interested in art but rarely had the opportunity to create any art in these programs or work on structured creative projects due to the lack of resources and supervision needed.

Therefore, I wanted to create an easily accessible digital environment that has safety precautions, guidance, creative projects, and resources provided within it.

In creating this environment, I went through a few different iterations. Initially, I drew inspiration from popular applications that display and allow editing to visual media, such as Instagram or various photo filtering or editing apps, with prompts. The prompts are sourced from Art-Thearpy prompts; for example, "Draw your family." In this iteration, users are given daily prompts and can choose from three options: Feel, Think, or Express. In "Feel," they could view other users' responses to the prompt. In "Think," they could explore the prompt's topic more thoroughly through supplied text, links, and videos. In "Express," users can create posts responding to the prompt.

This structure, though categorically made sense, could have provided a better outline and way for the users to interact with all the material.

As I kept working on my project, the importance of digital environment design became evident. I started to rework the environment from an Instagram-like feed UI to a more creative and customizable UI. I wanted to create an environment that reflected the creativity I wanted the users to express. The current iteration is an interactive map with multiple publics that users can do. Within each public space, numerous items are tied to different stories. Each story has a separate image and an individual thing related to it in the larger public. Users can color in the picture and the particular item.

I then thought about barriers to emotional regulation through creative expression. This process comes naturally for some, but it can be foreign and challenging for others, especially for those who have yet to attempt it. For those intimidated by it, there may be better ways to introduce this process to them than open-ended prompt-based questions. It's like when someone recommends you start journaling; you get the notebook and the pen, but when you open the journal, the blank page may feel daunting.

Therefore, I changed the user journey. In the current iteration, users are guided through narrative stories that reflect real-life situations and provided options to choose the characters' feelings and actions. This new structure offers guidelines while also giving users agency. In each plot point of the story, users can color in parts of an image to reflect how they feel and what they do in that plot point.