I designed The Happiness Vitamin - a mobile application, for therapy and emotional support that is available 24/7.
Timeline
4 weeks, Independent project
My Role
Experience Strategy, Interaction and Visual design
Deliverables
High Fidelity Flows, Prototypes, Product Mockups, Process
45
million American adults are suffering from a mental health illness.
mhnational.org
83%
of employees in the US are suffering from Mental Health Issues.
A study by Lyra in partnership with National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions.
Historic events sweeping across the United States such as the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the racial justice movement, have challenged and affected the people of America in a number of unprecedented ways. It has taken a major toll on their mental health.
PROBLEM
In-office/In-person therapy is expensive, time consuming, not available on-demand and risky during the ongoing pandemic.
Mental health services like cognitive behavioral therapy and cognitive behavioral coaching being accessible to everyone, even when people are unable to see their therapists in person, is more essential than it has ever been. Additionally, emotional challenges don’t always hit us between 9-5, or during a therapist's working hours, sometimes it hits us in the middle of the night, when a friend’s support isn’t always enough.
OPPORTUNITY
How might we take advantage of the fact that nearly 81% of adults in the US have smartphones and can recieve online therapy/coaching anytime, anywhere?
Developing a mobile application that can be downloaded and launched on smartphones through which users can connect with a therapist or a coach on-demand would be a great opportunity.
SOLUTION
The Happiness Vitamin
A mobile application to book an online session with a therapist, get immediate emotional support from a behavioral coach and build coping skills through self care activities. All available 24/7.
The Happiness Vitamin
The Happiness Vitamin (THV) is a mobile application that makes it possible for individuals to seek emotional support anytime, anywhere. By providing access to therapists and behavioral coaches 24/7, progress and medication tracking tools and several self care activities to build coping skills for life, THV helps make mental health care accessible to everyone.
How THV works
Access emotional support anytime, anywhere.
Sign in from anywhere and find a list of therapists, coaches and self care activities to choose from.
Pick a therapist of your choice.
Choose from a list of therapists, review their experience, education and client reviews. Book an appointment easily.
Track your progress and medications.
Keep a track of the progress you're making with therapy and set reminders on the app to be sure you take your medications.
Chat live with a coach or a therapist.
Easily get emotional help immediately by using the chat option. Message coaches 24/7 and therapists .
Build new coping skills for life.
Choose from a plethora of self care activity cards and lessons to build new skills that will equip you with the coping skills that you will use for life.
Building The Happiness Vitamin
01.
Initial Research
To get an understanding of where people stand when it comes to traditional in-office therapy, I talked to a few human beings and gathered data.
To understand why some people were closed to or unsure of the idea of trying therapy, I asked them another set of questions to find out why and gathered more data.
Data was sampled from 27 people
" I wish I could just text or call a professional when I am anxious and overwhelmed at 2 am, instead of hoping that the friend I text will be awake and says the right thing to help me calm down."
-Quote from user survey.
" I don't have the time to travel after work hours to go see a therapist, not to mention the added travel cost on top of the already pricey therapy session."
-Quote from user survey.
With the user survey results and upon conducting more research, I concluded that online therapy would be the best solution address the above concerns.
Online therapy can serve as an advantage as it:
-
is cheaper than traditional in-office visits.
-
saves time and money spent on travelling.
-
is as effective as in-person therapy/coaching.
-
can be taken from home or any place of comfort and yields privacy when done over secure lines of communication .
Feature Prioritization
From the research data as well as user surveys I created a feature prioritization map and zeroed in on the features that would add to the quality of the application rather than just quantity.
.jpg)
Competitive analysis
02.
Talkspace, betterhelp and ginger offer on demand therapy through live and message options.
I scoured the internet to find out if there were any gaps or problems associated with these apps and they turned out to be:
-
Messaging/chatting with a therapist and getting responses one or two times a day and not necessarily immediately wasn’t effective in treating and reducing symptoms.
-
Long wait times to book a session for therapy.
-
The matching agent or a quiz during the sign up process is how the user is given a handful of therapists to choose from and they can only pick from that pool.
-
Only available through a work organization.
03.
Low fidelity wireframes
04.
Visual Design & Prototyping
For The Happiness Vitamin, the intent was to create a brand that was simple, minimalistic, and calming. I played around with various designs based on user habits and design critique before designing the final high fidelity experience for The Happiness Vitamin.
I welcomed feedback from others as well and used that to inform my iterations.
High Fidelity Wireframes
Final Design
Final reflections
I learnt that it is crucial to introduce user testing and iteration very early on in the process and continue the process of re-designing to improve and enhance the application's features.
