Designing for the destigmatization of mental health awareness
Designing a community mental health application focused on destigmatization by encouraging dialogue, raising awareness, and fostering mutual support.
AFFILIATION — Independent
METHODOLOGIES — Survey Design, Affinity Mapping, Personas, Information Architecture, Journey Mapping, Wireframing, Prototyping, Branding, Usability Testing
TOOLS — Figma, Maze, Google Suite
ROLE — UX Researcher & Designer
Examining COVID-19's effect on mental health
Given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health, I sought to investigate a crucial factor to discover the harmful effects of stigmatizing mental health — such as unemployment, social isolation, feelings of hopelessness, and suicide.
Discovering ambiguities in mental health applications
Through primary research, I found problems in areas of usage, credibility, and accessibility of digital mental health applications. The issues that stood out to me were:
UNMET NEEDS
26.3% of adults over 18 have unmet needs for mental health services
LACK OF CREDIBILITY
14 out of 73 mental health applications used clinical design or development, but none had accredited resources
INFREQUENT USAGE
Usage rates of mental health applications in real world settings range from 1% - 29%
Brainstorming possible solutions for current problems
The statistics urged me to explore further conversations about creating a safe space for everyone without the current ambiguities.
I framed my objective to understand:
How might we increase accessibility to mental health resources?
& make people less apprehensive about finding help
Conducting iterative research + solidifying high level goals
30+ respondents** over the age of 18 with diverse backgrounds, were surveyed about their
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Interactions with mental health apps
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Experiences of stigmatization
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Perspectives on teletherapy
Surveys were conducted to obtain diverse perspectives
**WITH PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE USING MENTAL HEALTH APPS WERE CONSIDERED
Popular mental health apps analyzed for competitive analysis
Mental health applications & forums Headspace, Calm, Sanvello, Shine, & Reddit were analyzed based on their key features like
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Pricing
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Resources
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Community
to solidify feature ideas for the application, & understand loopholes better.
SURVEY QUESTIONS & RESPONSES
"I did try a forum online, but there were so many links & I did not know what to trust".
"When I tried talking to my family, I was met with quick fixes and denial".
USER QUOTES
Surveys reported that:
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75% never used a mental health application
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50% never shared their struggles with loved ones
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37% did not find credible resources online
Findings from the competitive analysis highlighted:
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Inaccessible quality content
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Lack of inclusive resources
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Complex interfaces
The affinity map grouped related responses by themes, revealing respondents' motivations, pain points, and goals
User personas from affinity maps, to aggregate diverse personalities with distinct motivations
After understanding the users' needs & the mental health application landscape, I clarified high-level goals, which were to:
CREATE A SAFE SPACE
for the users to vocalize their struggles
PROVIDE CREDIBLE RESOURCES
using a simple interface to generate awareness
ALLOW FORMING SUPPORT GROUPS
based on users' interests, & challenges, for personal connections & support
By outlining the high level goals, I clarified the features and started sketching the navigation and flows
To gain further perspective on the various stages of interaction between the users and the application, I created a user journey map
IDEAL JOURNEY FOR 'RESOURCES' FEATURE
Information Architecture, brand design, & wireframes
Integrating the brand guide led me to prototype the three main features
FORUM
The 'forum' feature lets the user create, search for and engage in conversations they are interested in.
The 'like' functionality is eliminated due to the apprehensions it comes within social media
CHAT
The 'chat' feature provides the user with the autonomy to form support groups based on their interests and challenges, allowing them to form deeper personal connections
RESOURCES
The 'resources' feature helps the user find, bookmark, and access credible resources on mental health.
The interface is designed to allow minimalism to reduce clutter and overload of information
Testing designs on a system usability scale
To test and evaluate iterations created through multiple heuristic evaluations, I conducted a System Usability Scale test (SUS) to
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Measure usability,
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Validate my design decisions, &
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Obtain actionable insights
USER QUOTES
The survey of 32 respondents resulted in an average score of 81, revealing that they found the application intuitive, practical, and delightful
Reflecting on the process
ROBUST TRACKING METHODS
In addition to SUS analysis, heatmaps and eye-movement tracking would help corroborate the scores
MINIMALISM WORKS
Keeping the design intutive and minimal proved effective in conveying the app's purpose
GAMIFICATION NEEDS CONCEPT TESTING
The feature adding ripples based on activity can be complicated and shift the motivation of users
Moving forward
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Exploring additional functionalities such as video/voice calling for the chat feature
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Testing privacy requirements & encryption levels, and examining the need for moderated communities
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Improving the resources by discovering ways to provide succinct information in a digestible format