Blending My Passions - Mental Wellness and UX Design:
Mento Mental Health App for CareerFoundry UX Design Immersion Course
Project Background & Inspiration
This project was done as the capstone project for the intensive UX Design Immersion course I completed from January 2021 to October 2021.
The project brief asked students who selected this option to design a product that would help people in the digital age to manage their health and wellness and to achieve a greater balance between health, wellness, work, and life in general. The app needed to allow users to access and store health and medical information and appointments, provide education to the user, and be designed for a specific circumstance, for a specific audience, and with inclusivity in mind.
Having an educational background in psychology, having worked in the mental health field prior to changing careers, and being a certified yoga teacher, I wanted to use what I already knew about mental health to create something that could help people struggling with depression, anxiety, or high stress. Through my previous experience, I had learned a lot about mood disorders and various coping skills, as well as the importance of living a balanced and overall healthy lifestyle. I wanted to create a product that could help people not only balance their lifestyles, but incorporate healthy activities, like spending time outdoors and exercising, which are known to improve mental and overall health, and to learn skills to cope with and directly address mental health symptoms.
Research & Discovery
After conducting a competitor analysis to get an idea of what products were already out there, and what gap I could potentially fill, I put together a survey addressing the above research goals. I wanted to get a better idea of what kinds of people would use and benefit from an app like this, what some common challenges were, what typically stopped participants from getting help or finding successful treatment, what they would want from mental health treatment, what kinds of situations tended to trigger negative emotions, and what tended to help them feel better. I also conducted interviews so that I could dig deeper and really find out how this app should be structured and what it needed to include. My main findings, which heavily guided the design of my app, are below.
Key Takeaways: Survey & Interviews
Largest age group: 18-34
Large majority are female
Mostly working professionals & students
Anxiety and high stress seem to be the most common problems
Most surveyed are already paying a lot or a fair amount of attention to their physical health
Main barriers: Too tired, poor planning, not enough time
People tend to find exercise to be the most effective treatment, followed by spending time outdoors, spending time with family/friends, and journaling/self-reflection
Reflection seems to be helpful to many people, and many people would like this to be more part of their routine
Ideation: Personas, User Flows, & User Journeys
From the data above, as well as finding trends and patterns using affinity mapping, I identified 3 key personas who would serve as my target audience and guide the types of features and flows I wanted to include in my app.
Each persona has been carefully constructed to create realistic users from the challenges and preferences of those I surveyed and interviewed. They all have different lifestyles, mental health challenges, motivations, and needs, but will ideally all be able to benefit from the same app. Along with the user personas, I mapped out a user journey for each of them, and was able to identify a primary user flow that each persona would typically use the app for and that I wanted to incorporate into my product.
Gina is a 34-year-old working professional dealing with high stress. She wants a way to work healthy and de-stressing activities into her busy daily schedule.
Alex is a 20-year-old student struggling with anxiety. She needs to learn research-based coping skills for her mental health symptoms.
Henry is a 25-year-old unemployed young adult facing bouts of depression. He wants to be able to objectively track his mental health symptoms over time.
People tend not to have time for personal projects or other activities they want to do
People generally believe or have experienced that a balanced lifestyle improves symptoms
Cost is a barrier to professional treatment
Interpersonal causes and work/studying seem to produce the majority of the negative symptoms, followed by family-related causes
DBT, CBT, yoga, counselling, breathing exercises, meditation have all worked for a lot of participants
An app with minimal input, prompts, and suggestions would be useful - no significant increase in screen time
Above: User personas for the three identified “main types of users”.
Above: User journeys for all three personas.
Above: User flow for “Gina” - creating a plan to include healthy/de-stressing activities.
By using these personas, user journeys, and user flows, as well as an open card sort to map out the structure of the app, I was able to sketch and create low-, mid-, and high- fidelity wireframes and prototypes of my app for usability testing (below).
Above: An example of a summary of participant data from user testing.
Key Takeaways: Things To Think About, Changes To Make
People didn’t tend to understand the difference between viewing individual “Mental Health Scores” and viewing the details of the actual assessment. Seems like the question is confusing/redundant.
“Mental Health Score” representation was misinterpreted or confusing to some users (looks like declining progress, data points/dates not clear).
Lots of users thought you could complete “Mental Health Coping Skills” by clicking on it in the “To Do List” on the “My Plan” page - something to think about.
Some users commented that it was confusing that after adding a “To Do List” item, it didn’t show up until you got to the “My Plan” page.
Some users commented that “Save & Finish” button on “Scheduling” page should be at the bottom of the page rather than the top.
Interesting idea: Therapist having joint access to scores/account to update/view, some sort of interaction with therapist for accountability and human interaction.
Testing
The usability tests were conducted using a moderated in-person and remote approach. Tests were conducted in-person in Vancouver, Canada, and remotely with participants based in London, England, Milan, Italy, and Calgary, Canada. There were 6 participants in total, 3 male and 3 female, ranging in age from 24 - 28. Most participants had experienced some form of high stress, anxiety, and/or depression either currently or in the past.
Programs and technologies used during the tests included voice recordings, screen recordings, the Adobe XD mobile application, and the Google Meet video calling application. In-person participants accessed the prototype on the moderator's personal smartphone and remote participants used the Adobe XD application on their own personal smartphones. Sessions were all either voice- or video-recorded.
Tests conducted involved the testing of 4 main areas of the app, which coincided with the main user journeys/flows identified above.
Lots of users thought you would be able to click on the “My Goals” icons and input them there - something to think about.
Onboarding needs to be a bit more comprehensive and explain more about the assessments and how they’ll be used, and how you will use that information to set goals for yourself (and create a plan if you choose).
Rethink some of the button spacing/sizing (eg. “Manage Reminders” draws more attention than “Set/Edit Goals”).
“Progress” tab is easy to understand/navigate to.
“Resources” are easy to find, makes sense to users that they should look there for “Mental Health Coping Skills”; navigated this easily but scroll feature was not obvious to all.
Iteration
The usability tests provided a wealth of information to advance my design, and ultimately many iterations followed. Changes were made based on design principles, grids & spacing, peer feedback, and accessibility considerations. A few examples of these changes can be seen here.
The Final Product
The final product has heavily incorporated suggestions from users and peers alike, and the design has evolved immensely since its conception, as it will continue to with future iterations.
For now, I'm excited to present to you Mento: Mental Health Made Easy. The app helps users to set weekly goals that incorporate healthy activities into their current lifestyles. Using Lifestyle Assessments, users can assess how balanced (or not) their current lifestyle is, and which areas need more attention. This assessment is then used as a guide to set weekly health goals. Users will use the Daily Log feature to track their activities, which will be reflected as their progress throughout the week on the My Plan page. Users can access various resources to facilitate certain goals such as My Journal and Mental Health Coping Skills, and can periodically complete Mental Health Assessments (a research-based assessment used by clinical psychologists) to get an objective measure of their symptoms. Finally, users can track their progress using the My Progress page, where they can see how their Goals compare to their actual Daily Log input, how their Lifestyle and Mental Health Assessments look over time, and what they tend to log.
Mento aims to use a well-rounded, realistic approach to tackling mental health symptoms. The Daily Log is the most important area of the app in terms of tracking, and is designed specifically to be a playful and quick assessment. Users are given the tools they need to improve awareness of their current habits, and to address specific areas that need work, all while ensuring that an objective measure of success is available.
