Creatively Supporting Mental Wellbeing: A Tangible Toolkit to Scaffold Self-Tracking through Mindful Colouring
Jingxin Yu, Amid Ayobi, Paul Marshall & Aisling O'Kane. 2025.
Proceedings of the Nineteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction
Paper-based journaling remains ubiquitous and provides significant potential to support mental wellbeing and inform the design of digital mental health interventions. However, it remains unclear how tangible tools can be designed to facilitate creative and artistic journaling practices. We present the design and evaluation of a tangible toolkit comprising a set of laser-cut stencils and an example-based how-to guide on self-tracking mood through mindful colouring. Drawing on the findings of a two-week field study with university students from diverse backgrounds, we demonstrate how the tangible toolkit scaffolded personally meaningful expression of mood and lived experience. Participant’s visual accounts illustrate creative stencil appropriation and individual colouring preferences in documenting and understanding mood, emotions, and feelings in daily life. Based on this understanding, we suggest shifts towards more tangible mental health approaches to support people in expressing and exploring their felt experiences in creative ways.
Citation
Yu, J., Ayobi, A., Marshall, P., & O'Kane, A. A. (2025). Creatively supporting mental wellbeing: a tangible toolkit to scaffold self-tracking through mindful colouring. Proceedings of the Nineteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. URL: https://doi.org/10.1145/3689050.3704944, doi:10.1145/3689050.3704944
BibTeX
@inproceedings{10.1145/3689050.3704944, author = {Yu, Jingxin and Ayobi, Amid and Marshall, Paul and O'Kane, Aisling Ann}, title = {Creatively Supporting Mental Wellbeing: A Tangible Toolkit to Scaffold Self-Tracking through Mindful Colouring}, year = {2025}, isbn = {9798400711978}, publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery}, address = {New York, NY, USA}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3689050.3704944}, doi = {10.1145/3689050.3704944}, abstract = {Paper-based journaling remains ubiquitous and provides significant potential to support mental wellbeing and inform the design of digital mental health interventions. However, it remains unclear how tangible tools can be designed to facilitate creative and artistic journaling practices. We present the design and evaluation of a tangible toolkit comprising a set of laser-cut stencils and an example-based how-to guide on self-tracking mood through mindful colouring. Drawing on the findings of a two-week field study with university students from diverse backgrounds, we demonstrate how the tangible toolkit scaffolded personally meaningful expression of mood and lived experience. Participant’s visual accounts illustrate creative stencil appropriation and individual colouring preferences in documenting and understanding mood, emotions, and feelings in daily life. Based on this understanding, we suggest shifts towards more tangible mental health approaches to support people in expressing and exploring their felt experiences in creative ways.}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Nineteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction}, articleno = {23}, numpages = {17}, keywords = {Self-tracking, bullet journaling, mood tracking, mood journaling, mental health, mental well-being, mindfulness, creative health.}, location = { }, series = {TEI '25} }