I am currently developing an app. I had been conceptualizing it for quite some time, but one day I decided to just list everything I had been thinking about in my head. I wrote it all down, and realizing it wasn't a big deal, I decided to dive right in. Initially, my primary motivation was the desire to comfortably record random thoughts, emotions, or impressions of events that suddenly crossed my mind during daily life. This was especially true since Twitter and Instagram Stories no longer fulfilled that need. Above all, the biggest obstacle I've always faced when approaching projects has been not having anything specific I wanted to create; however, now that I have a need for something, even if it is lighthearted, I felt there was no reason not to do it. First, I decided to create a feature where users could view short diary entries—simply a few sentences at a time—in a timeline format within the weekly view. And on top of that...


Reading Emotions Through a Diary Why did it become an emotional diary? You write a diary > You leave a record > You look at the data in the record. You have so many records, so why not look at the data within them? I am the kind of person who checks monthly and yearly trends while keeping a five-year diary. I mean, it is good to be able to think, "I wrote a lot about feeling down these past few days > Oh, I was like this around this time last year and the year before > It's the season!" It is also comforting to see that my attitude toward a certain issue has become lighter, or to confirm that an event I struggled with immensely has finally passed. That is why, if I were to create a diary app, I absolutely had to utilize those records. For instance, if I could vent and resolve stories right then and there—stories that are too trivial to share with friends or partners, or stories that are heavy or intimate—I mean things like, "I am happy because the weather is nice today. I am someone who feels happy this easily... why is the world like this..." or "I saw someone standing in a corner of the platform crying quietly. I wanted to cry too; did that person feel at ease after crying? I feel depressed." What if my diary could read and mark emotions like 'happiness' or 'depression' derived from the sentences written in it? It seemed like it would be better if I could easily summarize today's main emotions after spending the day.

Native vs. Server-based As an iPhone user, naturally, I considered iOS native first. In fact, I had studied it a bit a few months ago while working on an iOS app project briefly with a friend. However, considering I’ve given up on many services because I disliked app downloads, building a native app... I even briefly considered a Progressive Web App (PWA). But since I wouldn't want my diary data going somewhere on a server (saving it in the browser alone feels insufficient), I decided on native, believing local storage is essential. I chose React, which is at least a little more familiar to me. And so, I am going with React + Expo.

sketch
In my head, it actually took on the form of an app, but drawing it myself, the resolution is completely broken, and it looks like graphics floating around in a polygon state. But as long as it's recognizable, that's fine, right? Are you going to stop making it just because the design is bad? From now on, I'll just do it. Since I've made "finishing at least up to the target" the driving force of my life, just... just do it.

I will be back next time with 'Preparing an Emotion Lexicon'.