Designing a Mental Health Product

14.3% of deaths worldwide, or approximately 8 million deaths each year, are attributable to mental disorders. Almost 28.4 Crore people suffer from an anxiety disorder worldwide which disproportionately affect women. (2.8% males and 4.7% females suffer from an anxiety disorder)

source: hopechest.org

If I were to design a product to tackle the prevalent mental health, I would start by empathizing with the users for which I would do a User research to bridge the gap between business and the Users so as to understand if the product would work in the real life or not.

Its important to set clear objectives in mind while conducting the user research. I would focus on creating mental health awareness & improving the accessibility of the mental support mechanism.

Making assumptions and formulating hypothesis are key input tools to be leveraged for designing such a product.

My hypothesis would be that a mental health chatbot product will provide recommendations on the mental health resources such as exercise, articles, video content, professional help’s contact details basis geography etc. which will target towards improving the accessibility of such support services and creating awareness.

The most desirable outcome could be when the users find the suggested resources helpful and relevant to their mental health needs OR that of their near & dear ones OR any acquaintances who are a little shy in seeking that help outrightly in person.

In fact I conducted a survey to garner quantitative insights and also conducted focused group discussions (FGDs) to collect qualitative data.

I ensured to capture the sentiment towards mental health issues through varied demographics of the respondents who filled the survey and were interviewed.

I interacted with 50 people (through FGDs & Surveys) between age-groups of 18-60 years across 2 genders – male & female in both urban and sub-urban areas with diversified occupation base from students to employed and unemployed people in order to understand awareness of mental health issues; mental state of people under stressful situations; availability and accessibility of mental health counselling services; any barriers in accessing support pertaining to mental health, if not for self but for someone whom they believe needs help.

The findings suggests that 60% of the people associate mental health issues with discrimination and stigma, 72% people find it difficult to access mental health resources. 80% of the respondents’ quotes “lack of awareness” as a major reason to barrier in accessing support. 55% people mentioned anxiety and stress as significant mental health concerns faced regularly at workplaces.

I did this exercise to converge on what exact problem I would eventually try to solve.

Mental health is looked at from the lens of stigma (60%) or perceived as a sign of weakness. This is due to the fear of disgrace at hands of family or relatives.
Mental health support services and resources are not easily accessible in all parts of India due to low economic status and unavailability of mental health services.
There is lack of mental support in the workplaces due to focus on work deliverables and lack of seriousness towards this topic.

Need is to educate people on the scope of mental health issues.

I iterated multiple times to define a problem statement based on the users’ feedback.

I aim to build a product in form of a digital platform which creates awareness among users on the matters related to mental health and enable easy access of resources at a click of a button to foster community engagement and reduce stigma.

Potential solution:

I intend to solve this problem by adopting a human-centric approach in creating a mobile based interactive chat bot tool (named ‘Aayu’) which would provide customized recommendations basis the specific issues faced by a user along with the provision to interact with fellow community users on mental health issues so as to reduce stigma. It would also help Users understand the nitty-gritties of mental health conceptually.

The factors incorporated in such a tool would reflect cultural nuances, no linguistics barriers, sensitization, societal pressures, collaboration with mental health professionals & Subject matter experts (SMEs) to guarantee effective information & its accessibility.

Define User persona & User goals:

I defined the user persona who represents the needs, thoughts, attitude and goals of my target user who is combating mental health issues in India.

It is as follows:

He / She is an individual from any city or village in India, either employed or non-employed, with modest to affluent economic status, in the age group of 18-60 years, who wants to tackle the stigma associated with mental health issues for self or their acquaintances.
He / She is an individual who has faced anxiety, workplace harassment, stress or depression at some point in their lives.
He / She is an individual who is seeking a holistic perspective on mental well-being, who values support, who is exploring digital mental health solutions and who is keen to engage on community building forums.

Build a detailed user journey of the MVP (minimum viable product)

According to me, A User journey must cover the user persona’s use of the product through a descriptive narrative starting from the first exposure to the final transaction.

I have mapped the touchpoints as follows:

User onboarding: Lets say a User is searching mental health on internet and finds a mobile app-based chat bot tool. This user downloads the app and installs it on his / her phone post which he / she gets flash cards explaining the purpose and features of the app.
User profile set-up: The user creates his or her profile with basic information along with the interests and preferences.
Goal setting: The embedded chat-bot prompts the User to punch in the key concerns faced by him or her such as stress, emotional well-being, mental health stigmatization, workplace harassment etc.
Resource sharing: Basis the user’s concerns and preferences, the chat-bot curates relevant content such as interactive videos pertaining to the mental health issues.
Call to Action-1-CONNECT: If the user induces the need for help in the middle of viewing the video or towards the end of it, the chatbot would extract the geo location to suggest Mental health SMEs and professionals whom can be consulted in a private setting to diagnose the issue.
Call to Action-2-LEARN BY DOING: If the user is seeking a more organic proactive self-care mechanism to deal with mental issues, the chatbot curates on-the-go easily manageable and efficient meditative exercises which the user will have to emulate & practice to get the benefits.
Engagement: The app promotes features for community building around experience sharing, communication, stigma reduction, encouragement, mutual connection & sympathy towards tackling the common issues on mental health.
Hotline: An additional feature for immediate support to register emergency or crisis like situation through a 24/7 helpline support.
Eye on goal achievement: Users can prompt the chat box to give the summary of the user’s interaction with the app resources & support systems to address their initial concerns and how they have progressed so far in upholding and transitioning towards positive sentiments.

Key Performance Indicators to evaluate output and outcome of the MVP product:

It’s important to choose the right metrics for assessing the outcome of the MVP so as to ensure alignment & focus towards a common objective of platinum-standard user experience and customer satisfaction. The metrics should be objective, measurable, easily understandable and actionable.

a.) Acquisition stage:

1.) Total users acquired

b.) Activation stage:

2.) No. of users who first viewed the interactive video content.

c.) Engagement stage:

3.) % of Users who contacted the hotline for support post viewing the video.

4.) No. of Users who posted their experience on community forum or who participated in the support group discussions.

5.) Frequency at which Users proactively opt for guided exercises measuring practical utilization of the mental health interventions.

d.) Retention stage:

6.) Daily active users (DAU) to measure the no. of users interacting with the app showing their interest and involvement in mental health related matters.

e.) Referral stage:

7.) Net promoter score (NPS) to track the likelihood of recommending the chat-bot enabled mental health App ‘Aayu’ to a new user base so as to track the overall user penchant.

f.) Goal achievement stage:

8.) % of users achieving the set mental health goals towards improving their mental well-being.