Project 1

CHALLENGE

How to improve mental health during and after the covid-19 pandemic through a digital product?

In the middle of the coronavirus quarantine I was confronted with a challenge of an UX bootcamp: how to positively impact people remotely during the pandemic?  Our lives were drastically impacted by the pandemic and an outstanding fact for me was that not only our physical health was put at risk, but also our mental health. The increase of mental disorders since the pandemic is a reality and it worries specialists on the long term.
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I choose to approach the mental healthy issue for my bootcamp project because it’s a national and global problem we're facing at current context, as well as it's a theme much appealing to me, since promoting mental health means to directly shifting peoples lives to a better quality of life.

DESCRIPTION

End-to-end UX and UI design project of a mental health app developed during the coronavirus pandemic. This was a study case project for an UX bootcamp promoted by the institution How Bootcamps.

When

2021

Who

Isadora Carvalho

THE PROCESS

1

Diving into the problem

2

Personas

3

Problem Statement

4

Ideating

5

The Solution

1
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DIVING INTO THE PROBLEM

Desk Research e CSD Matrix

A DESK RESEARCH allowed me to identify that specialists divide the consequences of the pandemic in four waves, the last one representing the increase of the mental disorders, which will remain even after the virus controle. The cases of depression and anxiety in Brazil practically doubled since the beginning of the national quarantine and even before that the World Health Organization (WHO) already stated the country as highest at depression cases in Latin America and as the most anxious in the world.Based on these infos, I developed the first CSD Matrix to conduce the research with users.

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

First I applied a questionnaire to filter the problems and opportunities to be approached at the interview phase and to define the target audience.

I preselected an adult audience to apply the questionnaire and since only 10% of the participants at the age group of 18 to 60 stated to have constant difficulties with using technology, I decided to consider all of the age group that had a worsening at their mental state as potencial users, in this initial phase of the project.

About the problems and opportunities to be explored, the data confirmed that most people interviewed desire and pursuit a better mental health, pointing as main positive contributions to that:

To have an ACTIVE AND BALANCED ROUTINE (keeping an active daily routine and having a balanced use of time between different activities)
To practice HEALTHY HABITS

It also came to light the fact many still don't put in practice activities and habits focused on improving their mental health, even though they consider it extremely important and have noticed a worsening in their mental state. Therefore, I identified the need of discovering what would stimulate the target audience to practice more healthy habits and what are their obstacles.

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

To avoid bringing my own perception of which habits would be beneficial for people, I decide to start the interview investigating which habits are considered healthy by the users. Therefore the questions were organized in the following structure:

1 - For you, what are healthy habits?
2 - What would encourage you to keep practicing healthy habits?
3 - What are your obstacles to practice healthy habits and to keep an active and balanced routine?
4 - What would you want from a digital solution to stimulate you to keep healthy habits and an active and balanced routine?

After obtaining the answers, I organized them in a card sorting.

"I need to eliminate triggers present in my context to start a routineof healthy habits and I don't see how an app would help me with that”.

This was a statement of one interviewed user that left a big impact one me. I kept going back to this sentence while developing this project.

2
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personas

personas

Two personas with opposite profiles were developed based on the collected data from the interviews. Many other tools were used in association with the personas to complement them and represent the target audience in the most realistic way possible. Through this process the target audience was set and it includes:

People whose mental state got worse during the pandemic.
People which don't have a balanced routine or that still don't have a consistent routine of healthy habits;
People completely or semi financially independent.
People that deal well with technology.
Age group: 18 to 60 / Focus: 25 to 45.

EMPATY MAPS

JOB STORIES

3
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PROBLEM STATEMENT

SOFIA

SUFFERS of mental and physical tiredness BECAUSE she dedicates too much to multiple activities, in addition to prioritizing work while harming her health. She doesn't spare time to rest her mind and body and lives an unbalanced routine, unaware of everything she does daily, without a consistent routine of healthy habits and with a growing anxiety. If this problem gets solved it would BENEFIT Sofia making her more motivated to take care of her health and carry out a balanced routine with more pauses and healthy habits after seeing the positive impact on your body, mood, mental state and productivity, improving her quality of life. She would also learn how to better handle the new routine full of restrictions and how to insert beneficial and viable activities into it, under a context of pandemic. It would also be BENEFICIAL on the business perspective because the solutions would follow a model of constant tracking and, therefore, would consolidate loyal users.

MATHEUS

SUFFERS of mental and physical tiredness BECAUSE she dedicates too much to multiple activities, in addition to prioritizing work while harming her health. She doesn't spare time to rest her mind and body and lives an unbalanced routine, unaware of everything she does daily, without a consistent routine of healthy habits and with a growing anxiety. If this problem gets solved it would BENEFIT Sofia making her more motivated to take care of her health and carry out a balanced routine with more pauses and healthy habits after seeing the positive impact on your body, mood, mental state and productivity, improving her quality of life. She would also learn how to better handle the new routine full of restrictions and how to insert beneficial and viable activities into it, under a context of pandemic. It would also be BENEFICIAL on the business perspective because the solutions would follow a model of constant tracking and, therefore, would consolidate loyal users.

4
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IDEATION

BRAINSTORMING E LEAN CANVAS

I did a brainstorming session based on the problem statements, focusing in how the problems could be solved and what would be necessary to deliver the desired benefits to the users.The ideias were brought to a Lean Canvas to structure the solution. Undefined features/aspects became clear and were finished during the feeling of the Canvas.

MIND MAP

To dive deeper into the solution and understand how the features on the app would connect, I also developed a Mind Map.

BENCHMARKING + Heuristic analyses

I analyzed some apps of mood tracking and habit tracking, but the app I chose for a more detailed analysis was the app Daylio, that gathers both features.

MOODBOARD

This tool was used to group the visual references collected to answer two main questions:

How the features can show up on the interface?
Which aesthetics will the app have?

MOSCOW

I did a new brainstorming section for the features and then I distributed them inside the MOSCOW tool to prioritize and identify which ones should be present at the MVP.To structure the MVP I used the tools presented next: User Journey, User Flow and Frame Drafts.

USER JORNEY

USER FLOW

FRAME DRAFTS

5

THE SOLUTION

THE PROTOTYPE

The prototype was developed aiming to:

Make the mood and habit tracker the simplest and intuitive as possible through the combination of icons and clicks. At the same I aimed to allow more detailed registers through the addition of notes and photos for more dedicated users.
Make it easy to create and complete habit's goals. Once again this process prioritized clicks and icons.
Make the visualization of the moods, habits and goals tracked as simple and intuitive as possible, especially the relation between mood and habit.
Make the step of completing the goals pleasant, that's why they're colorful and the colors become more visible as the user gets closer to finishing the goal. After completed, confetti and encouraging messages - which can be personalized - show up.

HOME SCREEN

The home screen of Daylio, the analysed app, demanded 3 clicks to initiate the mood register, so I aimed to reduce it to one click by fixing the mood emojis in the home screen.I also brought the goals to the home screen, making it work as a reminder of the daily goals, visible every time the user opens the app to make a mood register.

BOTTOM MENU

The menu was idealized to guarantee an easy access to the main functions of the ap: the home screen where the user can register moods and habits, as well as create and complete goals; the editing/personalization of the moods, habits and goals; the statics of the tracked data; the history, including the more detailed registers; and the profile where the user should be able to see a review of it's conquers and evolution and also access the app settings.

STATISTICS SCREEN

I decided to split it into 3 tabs so the infos of the tracked moods/habits/goals would be less condensed and easier to read. Therefore the user can choose to visualize the:

mood variations and the activities that most relate to each mood.
practiced activities at different periods of time to better understand they own routine. And being able to see their mood while practicing each activity.
status and progress of their goals. In this screen there is an options to hide the status, developed for those users that feel negatively pressured after seeing how far they are from completing the goal.

USER TESTING

The prototype was developed at Figma and it went through testing with the interviewed users to validate the concept and usability. I developed a roadmap to guide the testing and my goal was to confirm the following hypotheses:

The users can understand what is the app and how it works.
The users can understand the which benefits can be achieved and which problems can be solved by using the app.
The users can track mood and habits easily.
The users can understand the history screen.
The users can create and complete goals easily.
The users feel pleasure at completing the goals.
The users can understand the screen of statics of mood, habits and goals.
The users liked the solution and would like to use the app.

Most of the hypotheses were successfully validated, with some minors problems that I quickly adjusted and interesting insights singly brought by users, which I took into consideration while updating the prototype. I struggled with the last hypothesis though, as i had to do restructure the screens to make them completely understood by the users. All of the adjustments will be detailed in the next topics.

TEST ROADMAP

1 - Onboarding
2 - Make a mood register: You're feeling good because you were walking in the nature.
3 - Go back to home page and create your first goal: to stretch everyday, twice a day. Select the green color to this goal and add an encouraging note.
4 - Now complete the goal.
5 - Create new goals and complete them.
6 - Go to the statistics screen and check your mood data.
7 - Now check your habit data, specifically: waking up early and work overtime.
8 - Last, check the statistics related to your goals, specifically: meditation and stretching.

THE PRototype

IMPORTANT: BEFORE opening the prototype, please check the Test Roadmap steps to ensure accurate testing of usability.

ACCESS PROTOTYPE

PROBLEMS IDENTIFIED DURING THE TESTING

INTRO

At the onboarding I set the "click” as the action to move on to the next screen, but most of the users tried to swip, thus, I add this option to the prototype.

GOAL BAR

At first I planned to have only the goal's title as clickable, however at least half the users clicked on the bar to complete the goal. Therefore, I update the prototype with the entire bar clickable.

STATISTICS

The statistics screens of mood and habits were the most challenging for me. They were more complex to develop and demanded many adjustments after testing. Problems:

The habit filter wasn't noticed and the dots on the graph that indicated the habit were not understood. Therefore I eliminate this filter and in its place I created a more visual filter, based on the habits icons, at the habits tab only.
The users made a "wrong” association between the Habit Count and the activities in the calendar by color, once again ignoring the filter on top of the calendar. Hence I added to the prototype this correlation by color.
The Habit Count was considered visually messy, so I restructured it to a more clean version with icons of the same size and no colors. The mood related to each habit was then incorporated to the calendar.
Misinterpretation of the icons on the top menu indicating the tabs. I identified then the need of adding a name to the icons to make them more easily understood.
Most users considered the last graph confusing, consequently, I decided to eliminate it of the prototype.

DISCOVERIES

Some interesting discoveries after user testing which were incorporated to the prototype:

After reaching the last screen of the onboarding, one user stated to miss some visual indication that another gesture would be necessary to close the onboarding and open the home screen. That being so, I decided to add the name "home” and some arrows on the top right.
One user suggested having the option of adding a goal to google calendar when creating it, so that the goal can be easily visualized with the other activities at the user's agenda.
After completing the goals, most users smiled seeing the confetti, which confirmed how this detail can bring more satisfaction and a feeling of reward.
A user mentioned they would like to be able to set broader goals, having one main goal broken into smaller ones. For exemple: ”lose weight” would be the main goal and the goal steps would be ”eat healthy", ”exercise” and more. This possibility was though while ideating but dropped on the MVP development, meaning it's an interesting direction for the app in the future.
Another user mentioned they would like to share their goals and see other people's goals to keep motivated. Also they would like to receive and send encouraging messages. Those features were also thought as possibilities for future versions of the app that couldn’t be explored at the MVP.
The last two feedbacks show opportunities of expansion of the app and its desirability.

An impacting moment of this process was the validation with the user that had commented "I need to eliminate triggers present in my context to start a routine of healthy habits and I don't see how an app would help me with that”. Not only she approved the ideia as well as dowloaded an existing mood+habit tracker app to start using it.

I felt happy for impacting someone’s life even through a study case, for knowing this person embraced the solution and will apply it to their routine to improve their quality of life.

LEARNINGS

The interviews and user testing are fun steps. It's fascinating to see how the users always bring surprising ideias and interpretations that I didn't think of. In conclusion: there are always things to learn from the users.
Ideating is also very enjoyable, however, knowing which ideias to drop and which ones to keep and take to the MVP is the most difficult part of the process.
Set the user flow before drawing the wireframes drafts is a must.
Defining a roadmap to test the prototype makes its development much easier. Also, a clear roadmap is necessary for the user testing to work.