Helping College Students to Manage Stress: A Human Centered Smartphone Application for Stress Relief

摘要

This paper discuses a major topic, i.e. "stressed students while in college", that is essential to both society and students. It includes only the first two stages of the Human-Centered Design life cycle (Identify Needs, Research/Analysis, Design, Evaluation and Delivery). The importance of this topic is revealed when we realize that stress can affect students internally and externally. In addition, knowing the possible causes of stress helps students to manage and relieve their stress. Three major factors (i.e. academic, social and personal/family) are identified to be the main sources of stress and each factor has sub-factors that are discussed in detail. Based on our findings and analysis, we propose two approaches for students to handle stress in college: time management systems and social support systems.