As the summer semester comes to a close, my posts will become more few and far between. I still have many goals to complete for the fall semester while on co-op, but updates might be more spread out compared to the past weeks.

With this being said, I began interviewing users with childhood memory loss due to dissociation. As this week comes to a close, I have interviewed two separate users with two very different experiences. Just through these two conversations alone, I can already see how individual the experience of trauma and dealing with trauma is to each person. Hopefully by gathering more interviews and descriptions of personal experience, I'll begin to draw connections and come to some sense of a conclusion.

So far my insights are as follows:

• Memories can be informed by pictures even if you still don’t have that memory – you can hear a story around it and still feel connected to it.

• Stakeholders might try to intervene by going to the parent first, but sometimes this doesn’t trickle down to the child.

• One user related dissociation to the numbness felt during a depressive state – this could be a helpful way to look at how to either spot / bring someone out of dissociation.

• One user currently still uses dissociation as an avoidance technique. Once realized, was able to process trauma slowly over time by talking with others who have a shared / relatable experience.

Along with interviewing, I started thinking about colors + the meaning of colors. I started by benchmarking other apps that dealt with mental health and quickly saw a correlation. It's no secret why many meditative, mental health, and journaling product / apps have the same color choices. It is the meaning behind the colors that provide so much subconscious clarity.

While seeing this pattern, I also connected with them and I wanted the reasoning behind them to apply to my product / app. I decided to pull four broad color choices and then create my own palette. I decided I wanted a purple, a blue, a yellow, and an orange for the reasons specified below. Once decided, I start mixing, matching, + adjusting until I found a palette that I felt worked together well. .

Below is where my color palette is at currently:

For now, I'm off on a quick hiatus – until we speak again!