mazi • PAST
a diary companion
Duration: 6 weeks
Project Type: Group Project
Designers: Pelin Özbalcı & Sergen Çağlayan
The Concept
Mazi is a unique product-app duo that aims to bring back a habit once we all had: journaling. There might be various reasons users quit journaling such as difficulty of spending time on writing, not having enough time or not knowing what to write at all. Mazi intends to take down all the walls that keep us from keeping a diary.
Mazi aims to change that with a simple product-app duo that helps you remember what you are doing, right now. While the people who still keep a diary write down their day on their Notes app, Mazi takes that to a different level. What Mazi does is bring the mundane writing task that most likely will be abandoned in a couple of weeks to a fun experience, almost leaving the user feeling like they’re talking to a friend.
māżī • Turkish
(n.) past, bygone, antecedents
The Research
As psychologists worry that the coronavirus pandemic is triggering a loneliness epidemic, new Harvard research suggests feelings of social isolation are on the rise and that those hardest hit are older teens and young adults.
In the recently released results of a study conducted last October by researchers at Making Caring Common, 36 percent of respondents to a national survey of approximately 950 Americans reported feeling lonely “frequently” or “almost all the time or all the time” in the prior four weeks, compared with 25 percent who recalled experiencing serious issues in the two months prior to the pandemic. Perhaps most striking is that 61 percent of those aged 18 to 25 reported high levels.
According to that research, journaling may help ease our distress when we’re struggling. In a 2006 study, nearly 100 young adults were asked to spend 15 minutes journaling or drawing about a stressful event, or writing about their plans for the day, twice during one week. The people who journaled saw the biggest reduction in symptoms like depression, anxiety, and hostility, particularly if they were very distressed to begin with. This was true even though 80 percent had seldom journaled about their feelings and only 61 percent were comfortable doing so.
How to control?
With three main touch control, users can rewind while talking and hear where did they left off and delete or highlight the selected part without having to go back and do it on app. To activate the companion or give voice commands, Mazi has a button sitting on the opposite corner where the index finger sits, so switching between modes or simply giving commands are just in the tip of your finger.
Mazi understands how hard isolation can be, especially when struggling. With its artificial intelligence similar to Siri or Alexa, Mazi keeps you talking and unloading by asking related questions. It can ask how your day was, reminds you to celebrate your best friend's birthday, gasps when you get excited... Mazi can be a little friend of yours!
Mazi's product features the iconic Living Coral by Pantone, as known as the chosen color or the year 2019.
This palm-sized little companion works seamlessly with its app, also called Mazi. But if you're away from your phone and just want to talk about your day without any distractions or judging stares, Mazi will give you a sense of calmness, leaving you light as a feather after stripping you from weight of isolation.
Mazi will never give you in and hold your secrets like no paper or notebook can.
The product is best used with pairing with its app. In the Mazi app the user can see their previous entries, start a messaging entry, or let the app send the user messager throughout the day to make them keep a diary with ease.
Every moment in our lives are unique in their own ways, with every single emotion accompanying those moments. We often forget to keep a track of what we are doing at that moment, forgetting all the small but valuable things that matter.
Mazi is taking digital, physical, paper and digital-first into the modern era. Mazi is an ideal combination of the physical and the digital, allowing users to capture, and document the innermost thoughts and ideas of their lives. Mazi allows you to have a journal without the weight or the expense.
Mazi can be wore using the neck strap it comes with or the bult-in clip on the back surface. This way, users can enjoy a diary session on the go.
Mazi contains three main materials. Recycled plastic, coral colored soft-touch plastic and white hard plastic.
The Mazi App
The Mazi app can remind the user what did they write a specified time ago, if they enable this feature. For example, the product can send a notification that says “You stated that you felt very happy about the new job you landed one year ago. Do you want to tell share your feelings on this?” The user can send voice messages, notifications, letters, videos or images to their future-self.
Companion can ask related questions to keep them talking. (For example, if the user states that they asked someone out that day, the companion can ask the updates in the following week.)
Companion collects data through the year, like collecting keywords that might be milestones in user’s life and present them all together in the end of the year just like Spotify wrapped.
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“You started working here in Jan and ranted about your coworkers first time in March."
"You started dating Luna in April and confessed your love a month later!"
The Mazi app has a “messaging journal” feature that enables users to keep diary in a form we are all familiar: messaging. (For example, the app can send notifications throughout the day asking various thing and if the user answers, that leads to a diary entry for that day. This feature can be useful to keep user attached and make sure they don’t forget any important details about their daily life, making it easier to log a full diary entry whenever they want to wrap it up.
The Packaging
Mazi's minimal and pristine-white packaging that doesn't gives much about the product itself other than rough outlines and a splash of color on the side subtly hints the confidentiality of keeping a diary. The secrecy of the packaging mimics the constant curious eyes laying upon a diary but not knowing what's inside.
