iMatter (GovHack 2016)

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iMatter Chatbot Mobile Application

UX // UI // MOBILE DESIGN

Event: GovHack Wellington 2016 | Design Time: July 29th - 31st 2016 (46 hours) + Post - Refinement: 1 Week
My Role: UX/UI Designer

iMatter is a Q + A support chatbot app concept which focuses on helping those with anxiety, depression and mental health issues. It was created by Justine Pepperell (Educator), Louise Robinson-Blue (Developer), Lisa Ng (Mental Health Specialist) and Hayden Wallis (Data Statistician) and I as part of three-day hackathon, GovHack Wellington 2016

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CONTEXT —

CHALLENGE
Mental Health has become an important issue among the people of today. Issues including depression and anxiety have become increasingly more common among young people - some diagnosed, while some left undiagnosed. However, having depression and anxiety is not easy to have nor is it to talk about to other people. So what is the best way for someone with mental health issues to express what they are feeling - to get help without needing to go out of their way to ask people?

SOLUTION
iMatter is a chatbot application that helps young people who may be susceptible to mental health issues to obtain information and support without needing to speak out publicly. For example, a person in the grip of depression can tell iMatter how they are feeling and their buddy will suggest steps to improve his or her mood.

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DESIGN PROCESS —

Statistics & Data

As one of the requirements for the hackathon, we were required to use one or multiple datasets that were available for us to use. This was one of the biggest challenges that took the longest amount of time. Although there were a number of mental health datasets, they either did not fit what we were looking for or were not specific enough. We were able to source some data from StatsNZ (Statistics New Zealand) on those with mental health within NZ that highlighted that those between the ages of 15 - 24 and 25 - 34 were the age groups that most commonly had mental health issues. We used these findings as our target audience for this application.

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User Research

We looked into the many users of our target audience and secondary users to get a grasp on mental health issues and how they can affect an individual. As the younger generations are affected by mental health - not just for themselves, but friends and relatives too, we wanted to understand what goes through their minds. Each person has their own experiences and feelings towards mental health issues, but will not talk about them on their own accord.

As mental health was a very relatable issue for our team and for various individuals at the hackathon, we were able to talk to several of those people to get their opinions on mental health and what they thought of our proposed app.

Competitive Analysis

We briefly looked at what other applications that were similar to our proposed app to identify the most important features competitors used. We also look at the pros and cons that benefited or disadvantaged them to keep in mind for our application.

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Feature Identification

From the findings seen in the competitor’s analysis, we came up with several ideas of features we could use for our application. The ones that we chose to focus on were:

CHOOSE YOUR CHATBOT BUDDY
From the study, each chatbot application was the same for every user. There was no way to personalise the characteristics or the name of the bot. Inspired by Tamagotchi’s variety of virtual pets, there are multiple chatbot characters a user can choose from. A more personalised experience for the user will become more meaningful to them.

SUGGESTED ANSWERS
Sometimes it can be difficult for a user to know what to say or how to answer certain questions. Whether it’s to a person or even a bot, it can be hard to put feelings into words. Giving the user a prompts to what they should say makes it easier for the user to communicate their feelings. It also makes it easier on the chatbot to come up with meaningful answers for the user.

RECOMMENDATIONS
The chatbot makes suggestions based on what the user is feeling and takes consideration of the user’s interests into the equation. If the user is feeling down, iMatter may suggest the user to go out, get some fresh air and try an activity to take their mind off things.

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Information Architecture

From the findings seen in the competitor’s analysis, we came up with several ideas of features we could use for our application. The ones that we chose to focus on were:

Sketches & Lo-Fidelity Wireframes

I sketched out simple scamps to get my ideas down with pen and paper. I got my ideas down and gathered feedback from my teammates before working on the wireframes digitally.

Hi-Fidelity Wireframes

Once I got the final feedback from my team, I started creating more detailed wireframes on Sketch.

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FINAL OUTCOME —

Final Product

This was the final outcome at the end of weekend.

Interactive Prototype

Here is a clickable prototype I created on MarvelApp to demonstrate some of the interactions after the hackfest

REFLECTION —

What I learnt

My biggest takeaway from designing iMatter was working on a project with a team of designers and developers over the course of the two days. GovHack Wellington 2016 was my first ever hackfest or weekend event that I ever participated in. Prior to GovHack, I was always a little afraid to enter hackfest because I thought I would "lack the skill" as a designer to compete in them. This, however, wasn't the case as I saw that there was definitely a need for a designer. In addition, I gained experience working with datasets and statistics. I learnt how difficult it was to find the data you need (especially if you were looking for incredibly specific data). There is so much open data within New Zealand and it is incredibly fascinating to see what kind of solutions you could create with that data.

For the future, I plan to enter more hackfests and startup weekends to gain more confidence in myself as a designer. I have learnt so much and grown as a designer in a short amount of time and hope to continue to improve more throughout the other events I aim to enter.

Thank you to my team members: Justine Pepperell (Educator), Louise Robinson-blue (Developer) Lisa Ng (Mental Health Specialist), Hayden Wallis (Data/Stats) and Alan Kan from IBM NZ for helping us throughout the weekend.

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Credits

EVENT
GovHack New Zealand (Wellington)

TEAM
Louise Robinson-Blue (Developer)
Rosanina Estrella (Designer)
Justine Pepperell (Educator)
Lisa Ng (Mental Health Specialist)
Hayden Wallis (Data & Stats)

MENTOR
Alan Kan (IBM)