Healthcare | Academic project
Mindly is an app that aims to improve access to fast and reliable mental health care professionals virtually.
Timeframe: 3 weeks
Role: UX/UI Designer, User Researcher
Tools: Sketch, Adobe Illustrator, Invision
Discover
UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM
5.3 million people in Canada mentioned they needed some help for their mental health in the year prior to 2018. The most frequently reported reasons for having unmet or partially met needs were related to not knowing where to go, being too busy, not being able to afford to pay, and lengthy wait times.
Lengthy wait times are a problem, in part, because there has been a chronic underfunding of community-based mental health services and a reliance on intensive, high-cost services like psychiatrists and hospitals.
PROJECT GOAL
The ultimate goal of this project is for Canadians to have easy access to find reliable mental healthcare professionals to be able to make an informed decision.
PRIMARY RESEARCH
I conducted user interviews to get a general understanding of patients’ experiences with finding mental healthcare professionals and to investigate the reasons, pain points, and attitudes that ultimately lead to unmet or partially met needs.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
Average wait times, proximity, reviews, and building a rapport seem to be top of the priority when it comes to seeking a mental healthcare professional based on the interview insights.
THEME SELECTION: WAIT TIMES
People are aware of the long waitlist and waiting periods, it’s not knowing when their turn is or the anticipation of waiting that makes them feel like they are not a priority.
How might we improve access to fast and reliable mental health care professionals in order to help mental health care seekers feel like they are making the best decisions for their health?
Define
USER PERSONA
Based on the insights from interviewing mental healthcare seekers, we arrived at the following persona as our ideal target user for our product.
USER STORIES
Based on Rachel’s goals, a set of user stories were created to capture her functional needs based on the chosen epic: Selecting a mental health care professional.
TASK FLOW
The task chosen was to book an appointment based on the average wait times of the therapist as based on our insights, providing Rachel with access to the right kind of information can ease her experience of finding a suitable therapist quickly.
Ideate
TEAM SKETCHES
Once we selected a core task, we began sketching ways in which the app could teach Liz financial literacy in a fun and engaging way. We also looked at other fintech apps catering towards first-time bankers. The sketches revealed some commonalities between the way we were thinking as a team to visually represent a way to help kids track saving and spending progress.
MEDIUM FIDELITY
Usability testing
USER TEST INSIGHTS
After running a usability test comprising of 2 rounds with 5 participants each round, I derived some key insights on what was working and areas for improvement.
WHAT WAS WORKING
All users were able to search and book an appointment with a therapist with ease.
Showcasing the reported wait times in the therapist directory page rather than the information page was well received as a value add.
WHAT NEEDED IMPROVEMENT
There was no need for past appointments when users were searching for a therapist. It was confusing to users.
There was a need to explore a better way to highlight wait times visually.
Ability to edit or modify date within the appointment.
There was a need to rearrange the hierarchy of information to reduce interaction costs.
Visual Design
BRANDING
A minimal colour pallette was adopted intentionally to reflect tranquility and calmness. Turquoise invokes a sense of serenity, wholeness, balance and can help in clear thinking. A rounded sans serif font was chosen for the creation of a logo to evoke trust and approachability.
Solution
TRANSLATING USER PAIN POINTS TO PRODUCT FUNCTIONALITY
Not knowing how long she has to wait to get an appointment with the therapist.
Similar to the concept of ‘verified reviews’, there can be a feature such as ‘reported wait times’ where past users can rate their experience with waiting for that particular therapist and that can help users make an informed decision from a trusted source of people looking for the same kind of help.
Not knowing specialists and therapists within her proximity
Location is a priority, this motivated me to look for inspiration to find the best way of incorporating a map/list view.
Learnings
ACCESSIBILITY
When exploring the visual design, I thought Neumorphism could aid in the feeling of freshness and help focus on the information, however, I learned that it poses a massive challenge with accessibility in terms of contrast. Future iterations would definitely include higher contrast, particularly with the copy.
ACTIVE LISTENING
Active listening and asking open-ended questions are crucial to discovering qualitative insights that helped me understand the problem space.
USABILITY TESTING
Rapid user testing is more valuable than I ever imagined. Classifying those insights as per effort and impact really helped in prioritization when on a time crunch.