In December 2017, I completed a part-time program that helped me refine my Product Design skills. The subject for our project centered around improving access to mental health services in Canada. Over the course of the program, we conducted user research and applied our findings to design product solutions.
Process and involvement
Throughout the program, we learned how to facilitate a number of discovery activities with stakeholders, conduct user research, user testing, and ultimately pitched our final product to our instructors, classmates and invited professionals from the design community in Toronto. To read more about the processes and see snapshots of our whiteboarding and work-in-progress, read my blog post.
The beta program that I was involved in didn’t allow much time for research or prototyping, so I knew that my design solution was a bit rushed. In the summer of 2019, after soliciting some user feedback on my original prototype and solution, I decided to pivot the direction of the product design.
Research
- Competitive Research
- User Research
- A/B Testing
Design
- Wireframes
- Mockups
- Prototypes
- Illustration
- UX/UI
- Animation
Product solution: "Marbles"
The concept for Marbles came out of a personal daily practice I had started at the beginning of 2019. I found myself journalling my moods each day, but I wouldn’t have a way to track them effectively aside from manually scanning all my journal entries for common themes and word patterns.
When following up with participants I interviewed in my first round of user research, I was reminded that some of them recognized fluctuations in their mental health as it related to: lack of sleep, sunlight, exercise and social media use. I became curious to see if there might be a way to track and display that data. Below are some key features included in the Marbles app that would provide users with greater autonomy, knowledge and support when it comes to managing their mental health.
Daily Mood Logging
Helpful prompts encourage you track and customize your moods each day. Each mood log has a character limit the same length as a tweet. If you have time to tweet your feelings, then you have time to quickly log your moods.
I wish I knew exactly what makes me sad. If I really understood what triggered my anxiety, I would avoid it.
Megan W.
Weekly Trends and Insights
Marbles helps identifty language patterns and spot trends in how certain behaviours affect your mood. The more often you log your moods, the more accurate the insights. Download your data to keep or share with health specialists.
There’s ‘Summer Kait’ and ‘Winter Kait’ - they are two different people. Winter is hard on me - I need the sun.
Kait F.
Curated Resources
Finding the right support to manage mental health can be challenging. Browse curated articles, resources and recommendations that are just for you, based on your trend data. Also connect with therapists and specialists near you.
I really don’t know where to start - there’s so much advice online, what’s the best advice for me?
Travis M.
Challenges and next steps
This design solution is ambitious, and would require the user to opt-in to services that may violate their personal security preferences (such as tracking phone usage, tapping into wearable devices, or opting-in to location services). For those users who are protective of their privacy, they can still use Marbles to identify trends in their language and download that trend data for personal use. In other words, they could still use the app but with limited insights.
Next steps would of course involve more testing and iterations. I would love to make time to design a “Light Mode” version of the UI as well, as I’m sure not all users love Dark Mode as much as I do.
An extension of this product could be to design a custom wearable specifically for Marbles. A trendy concept could include a modern take on a mood ring or customizable necklace that would be more high-end and slightly more fashionable than current fitness trackers.