Free evidence-based anxiety relief. Helping you take positive action.
MindShift is a free mental health app that incorporates interactive cognitive-based tools to help you reorient your thinking, as well as behavioral strategies to help you make lasting positive changes to your well-being. The app was designed to help users manage their anxiety and be more mindful using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
Scope: Reimagine MindShift App
Role: App map, interface design, interactions, UI/UX, research and testing
Timeline: May - July 2021
Project Type: UX Certificate Project
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Teenagers who have stresses related to their school or work
And do not have the means to go to the therapist
Have a need to build a routine to help promote a healthier mindset.
Background
HYPOTHESIS
One of our assignments for the UX Certificate program was to redesign an app to improve usability and explore the user experience. Each team member designed a task flow for their specific user group.
My MVP focuses on teenage students and their stresses centered around school. I wanted to determine how I can redesign the app to help teens recognize their stresses and build a long-lasting routine that can promote a healthier mindset.
Image by MindShift, screens of the original app
Illustration from Harvard Edu article, The mental health crisis among children and teens
WHY
COVID’s impact has been deep and far-reaching. The AAP has declared a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health due to its effects. Our team researched to learn about new developments in the mental health industry.
We found several academic studies looking into the new role mental health apps are playing in the lives of young people. One campus study on anxiety management had participants use the original MindShift app. The quote shows the impact apps have and also shed light on the user experience:
“In regard to app acceptability, participants reported a general satisfaction with MindShift™ with some critiques including technical difficulties and repetitive content. This study provides preliminary support for the efficacy of MindShift™ in managing anxiety symptoms and acceptability among college students. MindShift™ or similar apps should be further investigated as a tool for colleges and universities to use to combat the high levels of stress and anxiety their students are facing.”
- Paul, A.M., Eubanks Fleming, C.J.
DESIGN OPPORTUNITY
Redesigning an app to provide mental health care is essential. Our goal for the project was to recapture the main objective, help people regain control of their anxiety, and build a more mindful routine. MindShift has a lot of great content, but the learnability of the app is difficult. We wanted to create a focused app that embraced a smooth and interactive approach to mental health.
Research
We set off to perform early user testing on the original app. We surveyed six users of different ages and professions. Testing the original app would help show us what was working and, most importantly, what wasn’t.
USER INSIGHTS
“I am unsure where to start and feel lost on what every feature can do.”
“There is a lot of reading and it feels like homework.”
“Is there a meditation option?”
“If I was feeling emotionally overwhelmed, I wouldn’t be able to read the prompts to calm down. It would make be feel even more stressed.”
“I like the quick relief option below, and the tutorial prompts are nice.”
Additional user insights
INSIGHTS FROM EMPATHY INTERVIEWS
My goal was to understand the challenges teenagers face with taking control of their mental health. I conducted three empathy interviews with participants currently enrolled in high school or university and ranging from 15 to 22 years of age. My questions aimed to define the most important factors at play with their mental health. The interviews helped to address the stress causes, and determine whether they had techniques to help cope with their stress.
Concept
EXPLORE SOLUTIONS
After my interviews, I began developing a visual journal. This evolved into “Your Journey,” a mediation-based mental health routine within the app designed to create a foundation for dealing with stress and cultivating a lasting relationship with positive mental health. I also designed a dashboard to help show user progress and reduce quitting.
SKETCHES
PROTOTYPE
PENCIL & PAPER
WIREFRAMES
FIGMA
DESIGN
KEY MOMENTS
Clear and Focused Design
We set off to accomplish our high-level goals:
Make the app more learnable
Reduce the text content to make the app more engaging
Help the user build a more mindful routine.
Takeaways
FOLLOW THE DATA
Designing a beautiful app is great, but if it doesn’t help the user or solve a problem, it won’t be used. I love seeing the data present the problems the users are facing so that we can use design to solve practical issues. Helping to create a better experience is the foundation of any great design, and listening to the data gives purpose to the tasks and solutions.
DESIGN MATTERS
My empathy interviews gave me a small slice of the emotional landscape our users are facing, and motivated me to make each tap and feature within the app count. I didn’t want to add to their stress with impractical or unnecessary design. The app is meant to be a tool for each user on their mindfulness journey, and I wanted that tool to always help rather than hinder their progress.
WHAT I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY
I would have loved to have had the time and resources to research which methods perform the best for people struggling with their mental health. We included journals, meditations, brain dumps, and calendars as tools—but I know there are plenty of other tools to add to the mindfulness arsenal that users could make use of to improve their mental health.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This project was under the amazing supervision of Professor Yeh and Professor Shin at The Fashion Institute of Technology. Their observations and teachings showed me how to workshop, think, and create under the UX design umbrella.
Video of journey user flow