A Mobile Solution to Mental Health Challenges

To understand the users better, members of the team carried out targeted surveys on social media platforms. Mental health professionals and people within our targeted demographic were also interviewed to determine their pain points and how the application might address those pain points.

After concluding this research phase, we came up with two sets of focus user personas; one for our regular users and another for people using the app as professionals.

Ade is a 23-year-old university graduate. He is single and trying to get ahead by running a clothing brand supported mainly by his day job as a Digital Marketer. The pressures of financial responsibility and making ends meet to get to him more often than not. Ade also feels lonely and out of place in the world from time to time. He would like to seek help from a professional therapist, but his busy schedule and the cost of regularly visiting a therapist hinder him from making the journey.

Ade owns a mobile phone and is not new to subscription services. He is very much open to the idea of an affordable platform that lets him book a therapist appointment at his convenience. He has access to other resources that help improve his mental health, like his lack of self-confidence and growing anxiety.

Dami is a 36-year-old cognitive-behavioural therapist with a master’s degree in psychology and has been running her private practice for three years. She is based in Lagos, a city where the daily hustle and bustle makes smooth movement from place to place a challenge for potential clients who have busy lives.

Dami is looking for an online platform to reach potential clients where physical location is not restricted.

We began looking into other mobile applications that offered mental health solutions to gather valuable insights about the industry.

The following are key insights from the competitive audit:

i. Most applications offer specialised services to users. Some offered quotes, while some provided music or some other form of media.
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ii. The market for online therapy, especially in Nigeria, was scanty. There were hardly online platforms where therapists could be accessed.
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iii. Most applications requested a periodic “mood check-in” from their users. This function made the application more interactive and allowed it to track the user’s mood over a period and make recommendations.

Upon conclusion of the research phase, we made the following decisions concerning the features of the mobile application:

i. A diary where users can document their thoughts. Users can decide what name to give to their diary, password-protect it, and choose to share their diary entries with their therapists.
ii. An “explore” section which contains inspirational resources such as music, podcasts, and articles.
iii. A “mood check-in” feature on the home screen, giving users the option to log their current moods.
iv. A “therapy room” where users can select the therapist of their choice, interact and book sessions with them.

We outlined three main areas to headline the user flows:

i. Onboarding Flow
ii. Regular User Flow
iii. Professional User Flow

The sitemaps are shown below in order, you can also view them on Figjam with the links.

The onboarding flow is for users to sign up to the app by filling in the necessary details. At some point in the flow, users are going to be routed to different points depending on if they are regular or professional users.

Upon conclusion of the research phase, I moved on to sketching initial ideas on paper and then converting the sketches to digital wireframes!

After finalising the user flows and requirements, decisions concerning the application's visual appearance were to be made. I opted for a dark palette with an analogous scheme for the colours. The typeface of choice was Rubik; its beautiful font family was used throughout the app's design.The text and colour styles are shown below:

The visual styles have been visualised, the user flows are flowing, and the earth is saved from alien invasion. Now we have the final look and feel of the mobile application primed and ready to go.

Enjoy!

While designing this mobile app was a wonderful experience, challenges were inevitably encountered along the way. Perhaps the most prominent was the lack of a strong therapy culture to build on, which made getting feedback from potential users particularly difficult.

Many steps need to be taken toward building a culture that encourages people to open up and take care of their mental health. It was a wonderful experience to work with an organisation that cared about bridging that gap in our society.