Good Mourning Grief App (Research)
Collaborator: Simone Pierson
Research
Our team began with a broad look at death, burial, grieving practices around the globe. Initially, we landed on creating a virtual memorial service where people who have lost a loved one can grieve without having to gather. This idea focused mainly on memorializing the deceased loved one rather than the experience of grief itself.
When further considering existing mental models of online memorials; we found they were often impersonal, gimmicky, and a misrepresentation of death and grief. This, in addition to insight from interviews led to our team to consider solutions more closely connected to grief and the experience therein.
Interviews
Through our interviews, we found that most people who had been invited to participate in sharing within an online memorial felt indifferent about the experience and didn’t revisit after the initial interaction. This information solidified a new direction: Understanding the depth of grief and how to soften and bring meaning to the experience, rather than simply memorializing the dead. This moved our interviews and the questions we asked moving forward.
Pivot: An App That Helps Individuals Process Grief
Our team landed on an app service and accompanying webpage that guides users through a healthy grieving process and provides compassionate support. This is achieved through 3 key components and their respective features:
Support:
Connect with a Mentor
Licensed Therapist Directory
Compassion:
Conversational Tone
Guided Writing Prompts
Guided (Audio) Meditation
Interactive Therapeutic Activities
Education:
Blog
Reccommended Reading
Audiobooks/Podcasts
Our main goal with this interface is to connect users to a healthy pathway through grief that works best for them individually. We also aim to ease the road to healthy healing by cutting out the middle-man and presenting helpful resources in one place.