How We Feel is a free app created by the scientific nonprofit How We Feel Project to help users effectively journal, track, and regulate emotions over time. Originally launched in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the app evolved into an emotional journaling app in 2022 and quickly became known for its fun, engaging emotional design. As of 2026, it has a 4.9/5 rating with over 30,000 reviews in the Apple App Store. Because of its success, this article examines the app’s design through the design principles from Don Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things (2013).
1. Main Flow: Daily Emotion Check-in
The app’s most important flow, daily emotional check-ins, is highly usable as it follows all of Norman’s seven fundamental design principles: Discoverability, Feedback, Conceptual model, Affordances, Signifiers, Mappings, and Constraints.
The main flow is discoverable. It’s the first thing the app opens to, and users immediately see the affordance of checking in because of the signifying plus button. The weekday and gray ring are also empty until the user completes one, signifying the user still needs to check in today.
On a visceral level, this app is very pleasing! Microanimations when the user moves from one mood bubble to the next create fun visual feedback. Every interaction also includes tactile feedback with a slight haptic vibration when any element is tapped or focused on.
The mood bubble wall is also mapped to match the user’s models of graphs and emotions. Each larger emotional category corresponds to universal cultural constraints of emotion colors. Red is widely associated with emotions like anger, irritability, etc. Mood bubbles closer to the middle or to another quadrant are more neutral, whereas mood bubbles on the outskirts are more extreme; this also matches the mapping of intensity on a graph.
The app also uses semantic constraints to help users record their mood. Each bubble has its own concise, specific definition. People may use emotion words differently in everyday conversation, so semantic constraints afford accurate mood logging, especially if they’re unfamiliar with how to differentiate between emotions at first.
2. Recording a Physical Sensation
Recording a physical sensation also follows Norman’s design principles. This flow is discoverable, has a learnable conceptual model due to appropriate feedback and mapping, and applies constraints such as lockouts and interlocks. Combined, logging physical sensations is easy and enjoyable for the user.
Discoverability is high: logging sensations matches the previous conceptual model of choosing a mood for the check-in. Mapping physical sensations corresponds directly to where you feel them on a body diagram, and feelings use the same colorful four-quadrant model. Users know exactly what to do because of previous app experience and the helpful tooltips. The interlock constraint of this step-by-step process also simplifies the experience.
Once a user chooses an emotional area, feeling words are constrained by lockouts: the words they can assign to this sensation are specific to the emotional area they chose. Users feel in control of their choices as they’re not overwhelmed with all the potential sensation words. Users can easily reflect: looking at these particular emotion words, is this what they’re really feeling? If not, they can go back and select a more representative area.
3. Exploring Quotes
The quote exploration flow could be refined to follow Norman’s design principles more closely.
Atypical gestures create low discoverability. Needing to remember two swipe directions and their actions can be confusing and lead to slips. Even though the pattern maps correctly to the dropdown at the top, it doesn’t match other app experiences that swipe along one axis at a time, widening the gulf of execution. When swiping, the user could slip and swipe down when trying to go left. It’s difficult to tell immediately that they changed categories from the “All Quotes” one, because the category dropdown is smaller and not the visual focus.
A solution could be to increase contrast and bring back the associated emotion shape symbols to the category. Better feedback and status visibility create a more coherent mental model of how quotes relate to emotions, bridging the gulf of evaluation. Users then associate quotes and categories with the previously established emotion shapes and vibrant colors. To minimize slips of swiping in an unintended direction and bridge the gulf of execution, quote categories should be constrained to the dropdown rather than another swipe direction.
Overall success!
The app is a highly effective and enjoyable experience by following the design principles outlined in Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things (2013). While it can take longer to choose the most accurate words, especially if the user is unfamiliar with labeling their emotions, by the end, the user feels satisfaction because they have control.
The tertiary flow of exploring quotes, however, doesn’t exactly hit the same mark; it introduces confusing gestures and different mapping that don’t match the user’s conceptual model of how browsing would work. The emotional regulation tool of affirming quotes could be more closely aligned with Norman’s seven design principles.