Abstract:

This research project covers the creation of Feel Wheel, a web application (app) to help users learn about their emotions. To this end, a new interactive, mobile responsive website was constructed to provide a space for participants to learn vocabulary to help describe, teach and learn, exactly what they are feeling. The design factor of Feel Wheel served to help users recognize their specific emotions within broader ones (such as “Happy” leading to “Proud”, which leads to “Confident”). The site provided journaling prompts and space for users to explore their emotions through writing. Users could choose to open their journal entries to the small participant community for other users’ input and support. Pre and post surveys as well as semi-structured interviews were conducted to try and fully map, grasp, and build understanding of the participants’ experience with the Feel Wheel interactive mobile responsive website tool. The small scale study’s limitations and results are offered followed by recommendations for future research directions of the interactive socio-emotional web app project.

Keywords:

Emotions, feelings, community, sharing, journal, prompts, support, network, social, vocabulary, web app, app, website, informal learning.