Mental Health App Design

The project aims to help people with mental problems get better. The idea is to create a platform where people can do different activities that can help to reshape their negative thoughts and behaviors that would subsequently affect their mental conditions. This app is mainly targeted at teenagers in Indonesia.

Product designer, Visual designer, UI/UX designer, User discovery and researcher

In order to achieve the best user experience, I broke down the development into several stages.

Every day, people are facing difficult problems that can lead to different mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety. Although it is very important to keep a healthy mental state, they are often neglected due to fears of discrimination and stigmatic behaviors circling around society. It prevents them to seek help which eventually can lead to unwanted actions, such as self-harm and suicide attempts. In fact,

As a country with strong traditional and religious beliefs, Indonesians see mental illness as some kind of spirit and evil doings. Many mentally ill are said to be possessed by spirits and capable of special powers and sometimes even revered. Other than that, there is also a strong stigma circulating in the community which causes people with mental health problems to experience discrimination.

I gathered 40 stories from the "What I Wish They Knew" website where people shared their struggles and feelings while experiencing mental health issues. Based on these stories, I deduced that many people with mental health issues don't ask for help due to the stigma, judgment, and stereotypes attached to mental health problems.

According to the Michigan School of Psychology, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is considered one of the best therapies for anxiety, depression, and other psychological conditions. It helps to transform negative thoughts and feelings into positive ones. Self-directed CBT can be effective, but many people are not aware of its importance according to NAMI.

I also conducted interviews with 5 people, asking about their experiences while having an issue with their mental health. The results are as such:

There is an existing mental health app in Indonesia called E-Jiwa, which is only available for Android and provides limited results without educating users on how to improve their mental state. Two other CBT-based apps, Bloom and MinDoc, are available but are written in English and require payment to access the full version. Additionally, there is a lack of promotion for these apps in Indonesia.

Based on the interviews, I created 2 user personas that represent the target customers.

After conducting research and creating user personas, I developed the informational architecture of my app. Here are the main features of the app.

After doing some sketches and wireframes, I tested the app with 3 users. Here's are the results.

Considering that it is a stress management application, I decided to use a main color that is calming. For the other color palette, I used warmer and softer colors. While for the typeface and elements, I used nondistracting and round edges elements.

A brief explanation of the main features of the app.

Users will be asked to input what they choose to be called. Then, they will be able to choose which topics they want to focus on solving.

The users will be able to do journaling from different choices of journals template provided. They are also able to add the journal to their “Daily Journal Lists”.

The users will be able to chat with an AI chatbot and share their feelings and thoughts. The chatbot will then give recommendations of activities and stories to help them feel better.

There will be different selections of courses for the users to access to better understand their conditions, and various activities and stories to help them feel better.

The users are able to view and edit some of the past entries of their activities in the app. There will be a report page for the users which gives a summarization of the mood tracker.

The users will be able to input their moods and feelings each day.

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