LOLA user friendly mental health mobile app
Project Overview:
Many users suffer from mental illness problems with this pandemic and economic reasons. Many people don’t opt for treatment because is too expensive and social segments are around it.
Problem Statement:
During the pandemic, people have gone through some kind of stress and tight situation which have taken a toll on them. The impact of COVID-19 is dramatically changing the lives of people including the lives of young people. Schools and Universities have closed, exams and events have been cancelled and some people have a network connection issue. All works and socialising are limited and stuck. And they experienced mental or emotional challenges such as anxiety, depression and even suicidal thoughts according to students well being in during the pandemic.
A KFF Health Tracking Poll from July 2020 also found that many adults are reporting specific negative impacts on their mental health and well-being such as difficulty sleeping (36%) or eating (32%) increases in alcohol consumption or substance use (12%) and worsening chronic conditions (12%) due to worry and stress over the COVID-19.
About LOLA App:
Lola is an AI-enabled mental health application that provides patients with a therapist’s connection and self-guiding platform.
Tools:
During the design process, I used google Forms for the survey, FIGJAM for UX Research( Competitor Analysis, User Persona, Journey map), Balsamiq for Low-Fi Wireframes and Figma for High Fi wireframes and Prototypes.
Design Process:
Used the Design Thinking approach for solving this problem. To practice design thinking I followed the below process.
Discover Phase:
Quantitative Research
In the user research, I aimed to send the online survey. To prepare the survey, I analysed the most trending mood-tracking application and did the competitor analysis. It’s helped to understand the functionality of the application and the most usable functionalities with user reviews and feedback. I got 29 respondents to survey who had a different kind of mental illness. During the past 4 weeks, 34.5% of users faced the problem with mentality. 51.7% of people had relationship problems during the past 2 weeks. In the sleeping pattern, 44.8% sleep 4-6 hours per day and 3.5% sleep less than 4 hours. 55.2% of people had emotional problems, depression and anxiety during the past 4 weeks. 89.7% said mobile mental health apps are useful for treatments.
Guiding Questions:
◆Age
◆When did you last get your mental health examination done?
◆Does your health limit you in doing daily activities?
◆Gender
◆Overall how would you rate your physical health?
◆Are you currently taking any medication?
◆Overall how would you rate your mental health?
◆How many hours do you sleep per day?
◆During the past 4 weeks, have you had any problems with your work or daily life due to your physical health?
◆How is your quality of sleep?
◆During the past 4 weeks, have you had any problems with your work or daily life due to any emotional problems, such as feeling depressed, sad or anxious?
◆What is your relationship status?
◆Have you felt particularly low or down for more than 2 weeks in a row?
◆Are you going through a tough emotional situation?
◆During the past two weeks, how often has your mental health affected your relationships?
◆Have you heard of any mobile mental health apps?
◆How often do you exercise below?
◆Please list what apps you have heard off
◆Have you noticed any changes in your diet habits?
◆Have you ever used a mental health app yourself? If YES which one/ones
◆When was the last time you were really happy?
◆Would you consider a mobile mental health application useful for treatment?
◆Have you ever been diagnosed with a mental disorder before?
◆Which conditions do you feel would be suitable for a mental health application?
◆Do you want to share any other information?
I asked them questions about mental health issues, mindedness and mental health applications that they use or have already used. And features that they use most of the time in the application.
Competitive Analysis
In order to get a solid understanding of how our competitors are doing in the market and to lay out a solid foundation, we did a competitor analysis which consisted of direct and indirect competitors.
I found that there is no interest-picking option for the kids or parents, while onboarding in our competitors. And only one of our competitors had offline content. Two of our competitors had a progress tracker which also has limited capabilities.
Define Phase
Created personas, and customer journey map to understand more about the user's problems. See the process deck for customer journeys.
Ideation Phase
Created mental health app to learn more about the domain, task flows to align design decisions with user's behaviour, and information architecture to understand the domain and IA which forms the basis for the app.
When creating the user flow of the mobile, I wanted to enchant the user with different functionalities. In this application has different functionalities. Such as mood and performance checks-in, self-guiding activities, anonymous and trusted chatting experiences and booking the specialist, free webinars and resources that provide the all records to the user to check after finishing the tasks and consultations.
User Flow
Solution of the LOLA App
◆Personal Coach support.
◆AI Chat.
◆Self-Guiding.
◆Tracking the daily mood and checks-in performance progress.
◆Online free videos, events, sessions and live webinars.
◆Increase the number of therapists.
◆Safety and Protect the privacy.
◆Accessing the library and increasing the planning methods.
Design Phase
Followed the below steps in the design phase:
◆Paper Sketches
◆Low-fidelity wireframes with variations
◆Design System
◆Hi-fidelity wireframes
◆Final Design Prototype
Paper Sketches:
Low-fidelity Wireframes:
Design System:
High-fidelity Wireframes:
Onboarding Screen
Once the user is done with the login or sign-up process they will land on a quick welcome screen. After clicking the “ GET STARTED” button the first time they are taken to these four screens. The goal of the onboarding flow is to collect information about the users’ interests to truly make it tailored to their needs.
Questions
They have to enter their answers to questions or else they can skip the questions, that’s the only information needed at first because throwing a lot of bulky questions just at the start may tempt the user to close the app or even uninstall it. So I decided to create a self-test after the onboarding. And they need to enter their nickname to continue the application. It helps to identify users’ emotional health levels and guide them.
Home
A calm and sophisticated home screen from where users can reach almost every feature. The talk function has been highlighted a little more which tempts the users to share more which will ultimately help in a healthier mind of the user. The home page includes everything that the user needs. If the user takes the exercises, I decided to add the exercises top of the home page. Because the user can continue the recent exercises. It helps users to perform daily and improve their mental health.
After that, I add the My exercises category regards on the onboarding answers. We have developed several individual courses for the optimal use of the application. And the user is motivated to find new exercises and try to do them.
Users can book therapists by checking the ratings and feedback. And user can browse anything in the search panel and we provide notifications where the user can fully adjust their daily schedule and manage the appointments and plans and take the daily tasks. For a safety net, I add the SOS that users can do ( Exercises, events, etc.) and self-performance reports.
Chat Bot
A minimal chat interface with short reply suggestions where the user can tap the suggestion or reply by typing the message. There’s also a feature to share pictures and sharing stories through voice messages. It works using cognitive behavioural therapy and applies techniques to help user to improve their mental health. And it provides self-assessment and guidelines for stress, anxiety, depression, sleep, and self-esteem.
Therapists
When a user clicks on the therapy tab for the first time, it opens up a therapist’s list screen, where the user can choose a personal therapy. A user can communicate with the therapist in chat, video, and audio calls. Users can book therapists easily and feasibly and get counselling. And user can check the therapist’s available times and dates with calendars and reschedule a therapy session as per their availability and notify the user accordingly.
Library
Lola allows users to browse through various articles, videos or sessions and blog posts on mental health issues. This app suggests relevant self-help sessions in the form of audiobooks and podcasts. In this section, users can learn more about psychology and therapy about conditions and they can add it to their favourite and bookmark. And user can prefer live podcasting, events and sessions with their plans. The Join now button on top of the live session card makes it look more tappable.
Check the Prototype and Visual Designs
Usability Testing:
After completing the design I have just done the A/B testing with users and identified the main features and strengths/weaknesses of the app. And I discovered improvements in flow based on user feedback.
1. Check-in and free conversation with AI chatbot
2. Journal entry and therapist session booking
3. Self-guiding motivations
In addition to supporting interaction design, visual components have the power to stir users’ emotions. We can effectively impact users by comprehending and using these emotional responses. In the user flow and the design, I didn’t add the SOS functionality. After completing the usability testing with users I noticed that features need to be added to the design flow.
Users should be able to do activities with motivational quotes. In the initial design, I didn’t support the motivational quotes for the activities. Once the user selects the daily activities and forgets to do, them at that moment I add the reminder notice with a motivational and welcome quote. And after logging into the application, In the home page shows getting the message for interacting with the user of the application.
Takeaways:
The project helped me to learn more about the process of a design thinking framework. Learned to do better visuals with the material design guidelines, by creating a small component library. Also learned how to empathise with the users in a better way.
