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Fixing Mental Health Online Is Possible.
Internet to mental health may be a controversial topic. But I aimed to create a safe digital space with online therapy.
Spoiler
Spoiler
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Info
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My design works focus a lot on human wellness and I had noticed that designers / my peers addressing these issues often times neglected their own mental health. It’s only when I had a deep talk with them that I realized how many people, myself included, were suffered from mental illness. So I started researching ways I could tackle this problem and found the need of online therapy.
"I'm lost in my life, but I'm even more lost on these therapy websites."
-Remina Barnes, a lost patient
Project Topics:
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Online Therapy
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User Experience
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Personal Passion Project
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Role:
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Experience Researcher
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Experience Designer
Timeline:
2021 Aug - 2021 Nov
4 months
Impact:
A product roadmap informed by research & deeper user empathy within the design technology department at Parsons School of Design
Context
Business Context: How big is the market?
How many people are aware of their own conditions and willing to seek for help?
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The demand for online therapy in the U.S. has drastically raised.
Competitive Analysis:
Learn from mistakes & Identify Market Gap
Phase 1: How can a digital space provide the feeling of security?
It is a hard question to answer. But easier for people to recognize what they don't feel safe about.
Insecurity comes from not knowing what to expect.
But who are my users?
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The road to defining personas was bumpy as there were many patients with different mental conditions so it's relatively complicated to create an interface for all. But first, with the information obtained from competitive research, I started by conducting interviews of a number of 25 existing users who are having different types of therapies (depression, anxiety, PTSD...etc.) and usability tests on competitors website of 10 potential clients who are seeking for the help of therapy.
They are my users!
Many mixed datas were gathered from the user research sessions. And honestly, it was overwhelming that I push it to the side and took myself to a nice food place and came back with a relaxed brain deciding to narrow the personas down to the top 3 that made the most business sense for the client! That is, focusing on the therapy categories that were most needed: Anxiety Disorder , Depression and PTSD. These are the 3 most common mental problems in the U.S. according to inspire Health.
Persona 1
Persona 2
Persona 3
Persona 1
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What do users not feel safe about?
I tested usabilities on BetterHelp's current website with the 25 existing users and 10 potential users on the first round of user interviews and found ​some common issues on the different stages of behaviors while browsing the website.
What do my users need?
Security comes from Transparency. That is,
Clear Pricing,
Clear Instruction, and
Clear Privacy Protection Policies.
I narrowed down to the top 8 subjects patients would like to know when they visit an online therapy platform and conducted second round of user interviews (sample #: 30). Surprisingly users cared more about the price than how online therapy actually works. If the price is reasonable for them, then they'd continue on getting to know more about this service.
Phase 2: Developing a concept - With quantity comes quality
This is usually an exciting time when the team gather together brainstorming, discussing with the business team and finding the balance between user needs and client’s side. However, designing an online therapy platform as an individual passion project, my approach was, too, to synthesize the quantitative and qualitative datas and come up with as many ideas (quantity) as possible to find the possible solutions (quality) using:
1. Persona deep dive
2. Journey mapping
3. Rapid ideation
4. Affinity grouping
Website, App or Both?
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It's always the question to ask. Do we need a website or an app or both?
Luckily, a research paper on digital psychotherapy platform with a case research on BetterHelp indicates that multimodal is necessary due to gender, age and accessibility reasons.
"We proposed that a multimodal platform through which users can dynamically select from multiple modes of digital communication throughout therapy may be an effective method of delivering psychotherapy to adults with depression. Our study results demonstrate the initial effectiveness of such a model, with users experiencing significant symptom reduction after the intervention."
With the results from the research paper and datas collected from user interviews, I came to a conclusion that both website and app are needed!
Phase 3: Bring the concept to life
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Web Version 1
Web Wireframes
Web Version 3
Web Version 2
App Wireframes
App Prototying
Phase 4: Test Usability
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Catch all the unhappy moments
It’s all about testing and adjusting with the interviewees from the previous user interviews
Final Prototype!
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