Stressed? Overworked? 

All too often, we get wrapped up in a slew of emails, growing to-do lists, constant meetings, or getting interrupted. When the workday is over, you go home to make dinner and shuttle the kids to their next after-school activity. All of these responsibilities can bring our mood down, but it’s essential to take a minute to smile and enjoy some light-hearted antics. 

The saying “laughter is the best medicine” exists for numerous reasons. For starters, laughter has been shown to help people manage stress by decreasing hormones such as cortisol, epinephrine, and dopamine. It also has anti-inflammatory effects that protect your blood vessels and heart. Laughter also releases endorphins- the feel-good chemical in our brains.

Finding ways to Giggle 

As an overworked, over-tired mother, I wanted to inject more fun into my day and not let crazy schedules and negative comments from co-workers ruin my day. Using myself as a guinea pig, I spent some ideating solutions to bring more laughter into my life. 

Before my ideation began, I clearly defined the problem by creating a Point of View statement. A Point Of View Statement (POV) is human-centered, actionable, and broad enough to allow creative freedom. It contains a detailed description of the user, their needs, and why they need a solution. Here is my POV: 

Overworked Ania needs a way to smile and perk up because her days are filled with so much work and responsibilities. She wants to take a moment to laugh.

Ideation

Ideation aims to create a volume of ideas, not perfect ideas, and there is no judgment. There are many different ways to generate ideas, but I focused on these three ideation techniques:

Worst Possible Idea

Participants think of the worst possible solution to the Point of View Statement. Thinking this way helps relieve some of the anxiety people may have when brainstorming. The session begins with writing down bad ideas along with a few quick reasons why. Once complete, the group begins to think of the opposite, which helps generate potential valuable ideas.

Brainstorm

Start by working with a small group and setting a time limit of approximately 3 minutes. Allow people to write down their ideas. Once the time is up, the ideas are shared with the group, and everyone begins to build off one another to expand the ideas or generate new ones. 

Gamestorm- Cover Story

Put yourself in the future and imagine what the headlines would be if your idea were a success. Include a cover, headlines, sidebars, quotes, brainstorm, and images. Participants can work together in a group to populate a Cover Story template.

The Results

From my ideation sessions, two ideas rose to the top, one I called “Frustration Scrambler” and the other “Flip It.” Because the ideas were very similar, I decided to combine them into one: Day Flipper. The app is partially therapeutic because the user enters something that frustrated them during the day. Then it will autogenerate a way to make it funny such as a meme, your frustration scrambled into pig Latin, or it could be read like Yoda or read like Samuel L. Jackson with curse words surrounding it. 

The content could also be categorized by the situation like Office Humor, Parenting, or School life. Then users can search various categories to find what others have entered for more laughs. Day Flipper has the potential to grow and evolve. 

The Purpose of the App

The “Day Flipper” app’s goal is to make users smile about their day and find humor in their everyday world. An excellent coping mechanism to a negative situation is to flip it into a positive. The user can also choose to share the now funny problem with friends so you both can laugh about it. Laughter is contagious and can improve the user’s mood and the people around them. 

Ideation Process

During my Ideation sessions, I found it most helpful to work with a teammate. We were able to bounce ideas off one another, build on ideas and enjoy the process. Because my teammate was not familiar with ideation techniques, I presented a few options and let them choose. The Worst Possible Idea approach helped alleviate any apprehension my teammate had and got the ideation sessions off to a great start. Once the ideas started flowing, the ideation process was a bit easier. All ideas were captured on paper, and after each 3-minute session, we took the time to explain the idea better and flesh it out. In the end, there were a variety of options to choose from, but Day Flipper felt the most unique, feasible, and expandable. 

Wrapping Up

The inspiration for my app ideation came from having received some negative criticism comments at work; I wanted to change my mood. I needed something that would quickly make me smile to move past the negativity- a way for me to turn the situation into a funny sitcom. I realized chuckling with co-workers and hearing my kids tell silly stories helped turn my day around. This realization made me feel more people could use a tool to help flip their bad days into good ones. 

Download my complete Ideation Session here:

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References & Resources 

DiSalvo, D.Six science-based reasons why laughter is the best medicine. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2017/06/05/six-science-based-reasons-why-laughter-is-the-best-medicine/?sh=1f05cd497f04

Gray, D. (2012). Cover story. Retrieved from https://gamestorming.com/cover-story/

Scott, E. (2020). The health benefits of laughter. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/the-stress-management-and-health-benefits-of-laughter-3145084