Happier App Review - What Makes You Happier?

My absolute favourite app at the moment is 'Happier' - a colourful, simple app that helps you to collect all those moments that make you happy and share them with others.

The Happier team created the app after being inspired by research that shows when you acknowledge and share positive things you become happier, healthier and more productive.

**Happier has been updated (as of August 2013)... head to the end of this post to read about what I think of the changes!

After spending much of my time on holiday in Australia in the stationery shop Kikki.K (yes really!) I collected a number of their journals including 101 Dreams, Happiness and Gratitude and the overwhelming thing across all of them to increase your happiness is to be grateful everyday... Happier helps you to do just that.

The notion behind the app is not only an inspiring thing but the app's design is smooth, clean-looking and very clear. The colours blend perfectly together and the layout is so natural, it's effortless to use.

When you are ready to 'share happy'  three boxes appear (it's recommended that you input three moments per day to increase your happiness, although you can add as little or as many as you like), you then add your moment and are able to upload an image with it too. Adding an image really enriches the experience so I'd encourage you to do so.

Next is where my favourite feature comes in... categories. You select a category to sort your Happier moment from 'working out' to 'eating awesome food' or you can add your own; the team says they love to see new ones. Categories really make a difference to the user-experience as on the home screen all your Happier moments are sorted into boxes for each category so if you need to feel inspired to do some exercise for example, your past moments are there to inspire you. My most used category is 'the little things' as Happier has really helped me to discover more of the simple things that make me happy every day.

The features and design have clearly been really thought out with easy sorting of your moments by a-z, top and recent; scrolling images and the beautiful animations that appear once you have added three or more moments. It's worth adding three just for them!

Although you are unable to add much personal information (name and image) it's great to interact with others and read their Happier moments. Research has shown that happiness is contagious and Katie told me that after looking at my Happier profile it certainly brightened up her day!

I knew I'd enjoy the app when I downloaded it but didn't think I'd use it on a daily basis and I do... Happier makes me, well, happier!

Jane x

Score: 9.5/10

The only reason Happier didn't get 10/10 for me is unfortunately I lost my notifications after viewing them but I contacted the friendly team who replied straightaway and are looking into it for me.

Price: Free

We love... the fantastic design, fun features and happiness it brings to the day!

We'd like to... be able to interact more with other users but giving a virtual smile to them at the moment will do just fine!

Find out more about this fantastic app and download it for free at the Happier website

**My review has been updated as Happier has added more features!**

The team at Happier listened to user feedback and decided to make the app 'easier, faster and more fun' and here's my opinions on the changes...

As I said above in my original post, I wanted to be able to interact more with other users of Happier and I'm pleased to say that this feature has been updated. It's much easier to connect with others and 'follow their happy moments' but the key improvement for me is you can now comment easily on moments and also say 'me too!' if you really love a happy moment.

The update also features a 'cleaner overall layout' with 'fewer steps to share happy' - this feature is my only negative of the update... I no longer land on my happier moments when I open the app and this is certainly something I miss. To open the app and be hit with all my happy times was really uplifting and although now my friends happier moments appear instead so actually it takes me longer to get to my favourite part of the app.

Other great new features I love are the photo frame function where users can add more than one photo to their happy moment and position them in a lovely little frame - great for sharing even more fun photos. There are new celebrations, which I just love! These colourful animations make me smile and are even easier to share across social channels. Finally, another great new feature is the app now reminds me of my past Happier moments while I'm browsing my newsfeed - a lovely little touch!