ELEV8
Time: 3 months
Role: Lead Designer
Description: I was tasked to cultivate a prepared mind and use design thinking to create a problem that solved a problem that was important to us. I chose the issue of mental health on campus, because I believe the services on campus are inadequate.
PROBLEM
There is no greater outlet for students to vent to, than someone who cares. Many students wish to unburden their stress without causing strain on their friendships. Furthermore, students also want to solve their own problems and understand their emotions.
EMPATHY
While collecting secondary information I found that:
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“Personal stigma was…negatively associated with measures of help-seeking”
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“...More than one in three undergraduates reported ‘feeling so depressed it was difficult to function’ at least once in the previous year”
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“ The need to provide counseling for such a broad range of students and issues...is one of the major challenges facing college counseling centers...”
I conducted 7 interviews and created a thematic analysis to truly synthesize information. Here are a few pages of interviews
PAINPOINTS
I found the roots of the pain to be:
Time
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People spend time waiting for appointments to open while feeling that they are taking up space for someone that needs it more.
Knowledge
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Another major problem is that students simply do not know the resources available to them, but our interviewees showed that they were very eager to try any new solutions.
Access (Monetary)
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Therapy can be expensive and so this can be a barrier to those who can not afford to pay for help.
FEATURES
From the interviews and insights collected I found that the prototype ideated must :
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Have a way for the user to interface with the solution. In this case, I decided to do so with an application
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A daily log for users to input how they were feeling as well as what they were doing during that time
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A goal setting log
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A screen of emergency resources that redirects users to external tools
PROTOTYPE
After creating the prototype, I presented it to the students I previously interviewed. They largely agreed with our concept and the functionalities provided, but they wished for the following improvements:
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Decrease the Clutter
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Custom Goals
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Differentiate individual functions
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Better Navigation
The final result was neater and the interface drastically improved.
FINAL PROTOTYPE
