Get. Mind. Set-Mental wellness app
When I was asked to create a wellness app as part of my Ironhack bootcamp, my first thoughts were about mental health. Unfortunately, this has been the least discussed or ignored area of wellness, and pandemic made the statistics hit all time high.
The Brand — Get.Mind.Set
Get.Mind.Set is a wellness app which provide professional counseling accessible, affordable and convenient. So anyone who struggles with life’s challenges can get help, anytime, anywhere.
The app keeps a patient profile. This helps :
- To get the right practitioner recommendation
- Practitioner can see patient’s profile before session, which leads to better utilization of session time.
User can book sessions and track their mood after each sessions.
The story of making
All I had was some assumptions. First, I started with a UX strategy plan.
Survey
I conducted a short survey to validate my assumptions. I targeted users of diverse age group, culture and demography. There were many remarkable findings:
- 100% participants admitted that they or their immediate friend/family member has faced mental distress.
- 53% of them takes medical help.
- Mental distress affects people of all ages.
- People uses traditional health system to manage the situations.
- 80% of them are ignorant about digital platforms in mental health.
Stakeholder Interview
I started digging up our contacts to find anybody who can be a SME. Finally I could find a friend who also owns a similar app called ‘Yellow club’ in India.
I talked with Rahul, the CEO of the Yellow Club about the market. I could conclude it to:
- Worldwide, the mental health system is less affordable and insurance coverage is low.
- The pandemic has collapsed existing mental health infrastructure.
- The market is young and no app has a monopoly.
- Unfortunately pandemic has broadened the market.
User Interview
It was very difficult to find a user who can open up as this is a sensitive topic. We managed to find one, who is a friend of a young guy who has been gone through clinical depression.
“His problem was genetic. He didn’t even realize this until he was 27. The condition used to affect his productivity and personal relationships. I could find a doctor for him who is specialized in depression, since I had some contacts.
Now he is having regular checkups, does meditation and taking medicine.”
Existing artifacts
I referred some of the mental health surveys as well to analyze the issue in a broader perspective.
Analysis of the results
I grouped the knowledge points into an affinity diagram for analyzing and synthesizing patterns and trends.
Then visualized these into user goals and pain points. Empathy mapping helped me to understand target user a way better.
Pain points : Affordability, low accessibility due to pandemic, not finding right practitioner
User goals : Affordable solutions, a product to win over pandemic scene,
emergency appointments, find the right doctor
Frustrations of Peter Petigrow
The app is not for everyone. I portrayed our target user as Peter Perigrow, who was very active and outrageous person who got stuck alone in his apartment for months during pandemic. Several days of isolation led him into depression.
Competitor Analysis
Before going into defining the problem, I checked the existing market. The apps which are leading in the market were Better Help, Talkspace, 7 Cups. We analyzed yellow club as well - it’s a growing startup.
- All apps provide video sessions.
- Some of them has a goal setting and tracking mechanism for user to reflect their progress.
- The practitioners are either doctors, trained listeners or volunteers.
- App reviews shows many bad experiences users face from a non professional listeners.
- Apps are too commercial.
- There is no way to keep a profile and a space for user to open up.
SWOT Analysis
SWOT analysis on the competitors helped in building awareness of the current situation to guide strategic planning and decision-making.
Well then, What is the problem here?
The Problem
Our product was designed to provide help to people in mental distress.
We have observed that existing products does not have a provision to track patient history and provide this to the practitioner before the session which then fails to direct users to the right practitioner and time manage the sessions.
The Hypothesis
We believe providing an app of mental health having patient profiling can
help users to utilize their therapy time better and find their right practitioner. We will know we are right with feedback from users and practitioners, increased download rate.
How Might We
How might we improve the mental health app experience so that our customers get successful by creating a profile at first and then get the right therapist for their need.
Ideation
We came of with tons of ideas, which made us realize that the project has a great scope.
So, truly we had to prioritize our ideas, I followed MOSCOW method to diverge our thoughts to a MVP
I decided to have a product where user can:
- Make a profile
- Get practitioner recommendations
- Booking facility
- Give session feedback
- A mood tracking mechanism
User flow
The user flow lays out the user’s movement through the product, mapping out each and every step the user takes — from entry point right through to the final interaction. I mapped in our user flow starting from profile creation, booking, attending session and reaching tracking page.
Visual Competitor Analysis
In order to identify us as a new identity in the market, we mapped competitor apps’ aesthetics into mood maps.
Time to prototype - Low-Fi Scribblings
Mid-Fi -The total picture
Maze usability analysis
I got many honest feedbacks about the design. The most prominent was about the fonts and data clutter in registration form.
Branding and Logo
We named our product as Get.Mind.Set. Defined typography and color palette.
Design System
The Cutting Edge Hi-fi
Have a look at our Hi-fi in this maze test: https://t.maze.co/36545589
Next steps
- Desirability testing
- Intensive usability testing and iterate
- Incorporate other persona
- Add features -Live chat, Emergency button, Self tool kit etc.
Takeaways
This is the project I enjoyed the most during my bootcamp, since we got ample time to go through each steps of the design thinking process. Kudos to my colleague Julien COUDERT for the great companionship ! We played a lot with micro interactions, components and variants in Figma.
The research we did on the mental health market was certainly authentic and insightful. The market is still young and there is still room for investment.
After all, I realized mental health is a human experience. It is a normal part of being alive !
