bwn133/v-talk

V-Talk

Project by Yihan Shen, Jiacheng Yin, Bowen Yang, Jingkai Fu at Columbia DevFest 2024

Overview

see full design here

V-Talk is an innovative mobile app designed to offer "casual therapy" for white-collar professionals. In today's high-pressure environment, many find it difficult to seek traditional therapy due to stigma or lack of time. V-Talk addresses this by providing an anonymous, virtual space where individuals can connect, share, and express themselves freely, using virtual characters to enhance user privacy and engagement.

Features

• Anonymous Chatting: Users engage in conversations through a virtual identity, ensuring privacy and freedom of expression.
• Room Assignment: An AI assistant asks users a few questions about their mood and dilemma, then assigns them a virtual character and a room with users facing similar challenges.
• Virtual Characters: Characters reflect users' moods and personalities, walking in themed rooms and starting live calls when they come close to another character.
• Voice Privacy: User voices are processed to mask identity, protecting privacy during live calls.

Problem Scope

With reports indicating that 60% of office workers have worked while mentally unwell and a significant portion not seeking help, V-Talk aims to offer a proactive platform for mental health support, specifically tailored for white-collar professionals.

How We Built It

• Prototype: Initial designs and scenarios were created using Figma.
• Development: The app was developed in Java using Android Studio, with a Firebase database for authentication and login features.
• AI Integration: We utilized transformers for sentiment analysis to pair users effectively and OpenAI Whisper for voice-to-text conversion, ensuring user privacy.

Challenges

• Focusing on a target user group of white-collar professionals.
• Simplifying the therapy themes to ensure a straightforward user experience.
• Learning the technical stack of Android Studio and Firebase as newcomers to mobile app development.

Accomplishments

• Successfully integrating Metaverse concepts with mental health support mechanisms.
• Creating a potential outlet for the stresses and challenges faced by white-collar professionals.

What We Learned

• The importance of maintaining a simple project outline.
• Empathetic design thinking to meet user needs.
• Developing an aesthetically pleasing and straightforward UI.

What's Next for V-Talk

• Introducing features such as friend adding and more interactive activities.
• Collecting detailed user information for more personalized virtual identities.
• Enhancing the immersive Metaverse experience with further developments in animation.

Contributing

We welcome contributions from the community to help us expand V-Talk's features and reach. If you're interested in contributing, please take a look at our open issues or submit a pull request.