Autistic teen creates app to help others

Ethan Shallcross suffers from a form of autism.

After feeling like there was not a good solution available to manage his own symptoms, he decided to create the app Aumi.

“I wanted a way to track my mood with notifications and to make meetings with people who were supporting me with my mental health easier”, Ethan explained.

Aumi includes four different features. The first one is mood tracking. “This allows users to track their mood using the app, the widget or periodic notifications,” says Ethan. “They can then look back on their mood over the last week and see how frequently they recorded each mood in the last month.”

The second component of the app is the energy accounting tool. This helps the user avoid burn out during busy weeks. “Users give their activities Energy Impact Scores, which are between -10 and 10. The former would indicate that the activity is completely exhausting, while the latter 10 indicates that the activity gives the user energy”, said Ethan.

The third feature is a planner, which allows the user to set out the tasks for the day. “Users have cards for each of the next 10 days. Items can then be added to any of these cards, and they consist of an activity. Users can choose to add notes, a location, a start time, an end time and a checklist. This gives them the freedom to use it however they wish. The planner integrates energy accounting, helping users to ensure that they add enough time to rest along with activities that tire them out”, explains Ethan.

The fourth functionality of the app is that it sets profiles to make it easier for the user to tell others about themselves. Also, it has a sensory section, where users can classify their sensitivity as “under-sensitive”, “average” or “over-sensitive” for the different senses.

Aumi helps manage anxiety and burn out, as well as monitor users’ mental health. Unlike other apps for similar purposes, with Aumi it is possible to customize the frequency of notifications. “This means that they aren’t overwhelming for users. The simplicity of being able to select an emoji from the notification meant that I actually recorded my mood regularly,” explains Ethan.

Because Aumi is easily customisable, it can be used in the way that makes most sense to each user, without pressure for constant use.

Launched in January 2019, Aumi has already had great impact. “ It has been fifth in the UK Health and Fitness charts and 2nd in The Netherlands. Also, users have left a number of very positive reviews”, says Ethan.

Aumi is available for sale at the Apple Store, for $2.99.

Adapted from: http://bit.ly/2PhkQ0F
More info: https://apple.co/2UkwPcZ