UpLook
Abstract
UpLook is an award-winning project of a Design-a-thon for Social Good in April 2020 hosted by the department of Human-Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. This application provides experience women of color typically face with mental health support more engaging and personalized so that they would be more inclined to participate without hesitancy.
My goal for this project was to cooperate with the team to explore and find barriers that womxn of color face with accessing mental health support. Through the findings, I was able to provide the main structure of our solution and a feature to provide self-diagnostic of mental health.
April 2020
(1 week)
User Researcher
UX Designer
Pukhraj Sidhu
Emma Sadjo
Design Methodology
Our methods aligned with the Design Thinking process with Equity-Centered Community Design (ECCD) approach. Given that we began with empathy assumption mapping, sought to understand barriers related to power and privilege in accessing mental health resources, critically unpacked the lack of representation in mental health professionals, and addressed the stigma of mental illness.
Empathy
Empathy Assumption Mapping
We've started with creating an empathy assumption mapping to have a quick, digestible way to illustrate user attitudes and behaviors on mental health support. This method helped us to narrow down on scope and generate interview scripts to further develop our research.
Semi-Structured Interview
We've conducted three semi-structured interviews to understand how women of color in underrepresented minorities access mental health resources and what makes them feel difficult on their mental health support.
Define
Key Findings
By affinity mapping and synthesizing our data, we have observed that underrepresented minorities have difficulty connecting with mental health services due to:
Time constraint
"I'm too busy... there's already a lot of stuff that I need to do right now and [seeking out resources] would just add another thing" (p1)
Disconnect with therapists
“therapists are… not easily accessible, sometimes because maybe they're booked up or just harder to find… so that's always been a bit of a barrier is like when you have to talk to white therapists.” (p2)
Financial barriers
“I've gone to see therapists twice, only twice in my life just because they're really expensive.” (p3)
Relying on friends and families
"I think I felt like my family and friends are all have very open relationships, so I have people to turn to in my life." (p3)
User Journey Map
We visualized our user Anna’s cyclic experience in which she faces hardship in her life, seeks out support from her family and friends, and finds that this support is not enough to sustain a healthy mental state.
"How might we enable women of color to identify their need for professional mental health resources so that they feel more emotionally and mentally supported?"
Ideate
We generated lots of ideas and I sketched ideas that incorporate gamification to provide daily check-in to see how their mental state changes from day to day and allows them to share it with professionals.
Prototype
Wireframes
After ideation, we decided to build 3 key features: self mental health check-in, explore preferred professionals, and customize financial status. I was responsible to design wireframes that provide a quick gamified daily check-in that supports users to think about the struggles on their mental health independently without relying upon friends and families and allow them to share their status to connect with professionals.
Mid to High Fidelity Prototype
The experiences consisted of a digital health platform in which women would log their health activities, observations, and concerns in a diary-like format. They could grant access to this information to mental health professionals, who could then monitor the woman’s health and, if needed, ask questions or write comments.
The app would allow women to better find the right professional for their unique needs. It offers a feature to help find professionals in their area and contact them when they’re ready. To address cost constraints, the platform would rely on participation from mental health professionals that can offer more affordable or pro bono mental health services.
It offers the women an ability to customize their preferences around how they want to engage with mental health professionals (e.g. remotely vs in-person, one-on-one vs in group sessions). To address cost constraints, they can also customize the price range and insurance coverages.
Test
User Testing
We received positive feedback on the design's simplicity and intuitiveness, and considerations for our color palette.
“I like how everything was straightforward and
nothing was too wordy… I didn’t feel overwhelmed”
“Maybe the color palette could be more vibrant? Yellow or orange…”