Moodgroove – Creative expression to your mood

Mood tracking in the new realm of web 2.0 applications has undergone many interpretations and visualizations. On one extreme are the fun social applications which greatly trivialize mood tracking to a scale of emoticons while on the other hand there are those which complicate the idea by making the application highly technology oriented and bordering on scientific and statistical analysis. To strike the right balance between fun and seriousness, we worked on finding a solution for a single question – what would each one of us, as a common user, conversant with the social media paradigm, want in a mood tracker that proves to become a mood diary as well as a social networking medium? Moodgroove maintains the spirit of self-tracking mood (for introspection and understanding), while allowing synergic fusion of self-realization value as well as social expression. It satiates not only the stated but also the perceived needs of users. Moodgroove enables users to locate their mood on a scale, express it in words and associate reasons to it. The product visualizes these factors across time, and shows the patterns in users mood variations. What brings thrill to this product is its ability to convert a mood entry into a piece of art – a traditional medium to express mood. Moodgroove translates the mood into abstract art with colors and interaction patterns, while creating a musical mood piece for the specific mood. Yet another feature is the generation of a short poem based on the user's selection and choice of words to express his mood. There are potential possibilities and options to selectively share Moodart; Moodtune and Moodmuse on Facebook or Twitter bringing social aspect to the product. In this case study, we delineate the various challenges faced, experimental techniques developed and the evolution of Moodgroove from what it started out to be – an interaction that would encourage people introspect and realize how their moods are influenced by various aspects in their lives