Time For Time mobile app case study

Time for Time provides young people with mindfulness meditation tools with the hope of improving health, happiness and compassion.

We were chosen by Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, in partnership with the University of Sussex, to design and develop a mindfulness app aimed at young people aged 11-17. This was a collaborative project in which we were involved from the start working with target users to understand their needs.

DabApps helped in the innovative stages of the project, with novel ideas for an app that young people find engaging and captivating to use.

Mary John, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Clinical Research Fellow

The challenge

The client research team were looking for a development partner who could not only build a great mobile app but who could also get involved in the early design stages of the project, which included user workshops. They needed an app to be used as part of a pilot project, allowing the research team to collect valuable data on the effectiveness of mindfulness meditation and daily practices for a group of young volunteers.

How we solved the problem

We began with a series of discovery workshops with the client research team to understand exactly what they wanted to achieve, the characteristics of the target patient group and the data that needed to be captured from the app. We then created wireframes and designs to demonstrate the user workflow and presented these to a group of young people to gather valuable feedback.

The Time for Time app was developed using the Ionic framework, based on Apache Cordova to create a hybrid app that can be used on both iPhone and Android phones. A custom API delivers content to the app and individual user data is passed to a secure server where it is stored. An administration tool built in Django allows users and content to be managed.

The outcome

The Time for Time app has been used to conduct an important pilot project with a group of young volunteers. The data captured has allowed our client to analyse in detail both app usage and its effectiveness in enhancing the wellbeing of its users over time. It is hoped that in the future the app can further be developed to build on the research evidencing the effectiveness of mindfulness for this age group, and for particular mental health conditions.