MindShare
A Quest-based Mental Health App to promote mental wellbeing through motivation
What is MindShare?
MindShare is a Quest-based Mental Health App that aims to promote mental wellbeing in a new and engaging way compared to existing mental health apps. The main features we’ve designed are Quests split into two main categories: Mental Wellbeing Quests that focus on concepts such as stress, anxiety, mindfulness and Motivational Quests, which are aimed at helping users find the motivation to complete everyday tasks that seem impossible to do when bogged down by mental challenges. Users are able to build community in Community Spaces or 1-on-1 matches, making use of a Friends system to maintain contact with new friends.
Explore Mental Wellbeing & Motivational Quests
Join Community Spaces to chat with other users
Match 1-on-1 for meaningful conversation
Add Friends to quest together & keep in touch
As a part of my college course Informatics 172, “Project In Informatics”, I was tasked with the quarter-long project of designing some sort of ‘solution’ to mental health, whether that were to be a wearable device to track sleep such as the Oura Ring, or a mobile application to help manage general mental wellbeing, such as Headspace or Sanvello. My team, when presented with this project, thought about how mental health applied to our own lives. The first thing that came to mind was, “We’re college students”, and we’re always swamped with coursework from various classes. From attending classes anytime from 8:00 am to as late as 9:00 pm throughout the week, we agreed that our mental health took a toll because of the amount of anxiety and stress caused by college.
Overview
College students tend to face busy day-to-day schedules filled with attending classes, doing assignments, and studying, all while trying to maintain some semblance of free time and relaxation. This may lead to a lack of focus on one’s mental health (speaking from experience).
My team decided to focus on an audience we’re well familiar with, and expanding our reach a little, we included working professionals, who we felt would face similar issues of a busy schedule due to 9-5 jobs. Our solution would be a mobile-based application that aids the mental wellbeing of our target audiences.
How might we help college students and working professionals become aware of and alleviate their mental struggles to promote mental wellbeing?
The Problem
What is the current landscape like?
I researched current existing mobile apps focused on some form of mental health, choosing to perform a competitive analysis on 1 popular app, 1 less popular app, and 1 unique app. By doing so, I hoped to gain a more broad understanding of the landscape as a whole.
Competitive Analysis
Current mental health apps focus largely on self-care through guided activities & courses
A “Community” aspect may be present to some extent (discussion boards, group activities), but it is not at the forefront
Our Opportunity
“74% of users stop using health apps upon 10th use (Torous et.al, 2018)”
Rather than creating entirely new mental health features, our team felt that it was necessary to present mental health in a new way to people; specifically, in a way that engages & encourages people to care about their mental wellbeing.
MindShare will be a Quest-based mental health app that keeps people coming back to complete more and more quests, whether solo or in a group.
To first scope out the design space,
What are peoples’ concerns currently, and does MindShare help solve them?
User Surveys
To validate & identify our target audience’s needs,
I constructed an online survey that I sent out to relevant Reddit forums, as well as to friends and family. I received 23 total responses from college students and/or working professionals. The main goal was to understand:
Current mental health state
Experience with mental health apps
Gamification of mental health apps
In the last 30 days, 60.9% of participants experienced some form of mental challenge
There was interest in the concept of MindShare, but concerns arose about usefulness and engagement.
User Interviews
To better understand and address user concerns from the surveys,
I conducted user interviews with 10 interested participants, asking open-ended questions surrounding the topic of mental health and its gamification. Click to view Affinity Diagram + Thematic Analysis
Grouping Process of Affinity Diagram
After consolidating user data via an affinity diagram and thematic analysis, I identified 2 core quotes that conveyed the pain points of our target audience:
“We need to feel like we’re doing something good, just that little bit” (P2)
“Environment is your biggest factor in mental health…keep me from dipping too far” (P5)
At this point, we figured out that while people were interested in a Quest-based mental health app, concerns of usefulness and engagement stemmed from a need for feeling of progression/achievement, as well as a comforting environment.
MindShare, as a Quest-based mental health app, aims to engage users via Quests that they can take on solo or in a group, creating an environment to interact with others and improve mental wellbeing.
Translating Research into Design
Initial Wireframes
I created Figma lo-fidelity wireframes for the general layout of MindShare to gain a good sense of direction for user engagement.
Home Page
Explore Page
Community Page
The initial design of MindShare aimed to create a simple, 3-tab design with a Home page to track personal progress on Quests, an Explore page to view available Quests, and a Community page to chat with other users.
A core concern that arose upon seeing these initial designs was:
How do Quests address the mental wellbeing of our users?
Research Translated into Design
I directly connected quotes from user interviews to iterate upon initial designs, bringing research insights into the design solution.
“I have trouble having motivation to do work, trouble keeping space clean…feel paralyzed by the idea of having to do things” (P5)
Several of our interviewees, in some form, mentioned the idea of being paralyzed by having to essentially get out of bed and go through the day. Something that may seem trivial to others, such as cleaning your desk, or making your bed, becomes an entirely different beast. Being unable to complete these “small” tasks can impact how the rest of your day goes, and directly challenge your mental wellbeing.
At this point, we came to the realization that while the idea of mental health includes topics such as stress and anxiety, there are other factors of life that can impact one’s mental wellbeing. In this case, everyday tasks that people become unable to feel motivated for become their biggest mental challenges, dragging them down as these small things add up more and more.
With the core concept of Quests in mind, I decided to re-design Quests into 2 main types, “Mental Wellbeing” quests and “Motivational” quests. Mental Wellbeing quests focus on topics such as stress and anxiety, whereas Motivational quests help users feel that sense of achievement, encouraging them to do these small, everyday tasks that are so challenging.
Mental health and wellbeing is definitely the priority of the app, but based on our research, we find that before tackling mental health, we must help people find the motivation to live their lives, and be willing to better themselves.
Leaning into User Feedback
Usability Testing
I performed usability testing with 5 participants in order to ensure MindShare addresses mental health properly. These were the key issues:
Mismatch of Mental Model
Through usability testing, we found that for some tasks we asked users to perform, MindShare was not intuitive enough to what they expected to do. Due to a mismatch with the users’ mental model of certain tasks, users were unable to easily access the related features.
User Flow - Viewing Accountability Board
For Group-based Quests, users are able to check the progress of their group members in a feature called the Accountability Board. Previously, the Accountability Board was located in the Home Page for quick access alongside items like Quest progress and user level. However, our testing revealed that 5/5 participants were confused on how to check the progress of group members. We asked, and later confirmed, that users felt it to be more intuitive for such a feature to be quickly accessible on the Quest page itself, as that is most intuitive.
Initial User Flow
(Quest -> Home -> Board)
Updated User Flow
(Quest -> Group Progress -> Board)
User Flow - Sharing Quests
Users can share Quests with their friends as a part of the Group-based Quests available. Previously, users had to navigate to their Profile page and share a QR code that would allow their friend to view a Quest to join. However, after testing and discussion within the team, we created an easily accessible “Share” button on the Quest page itself. This makes individual Quests easily shareable.
Initial User Flow
(Quest -> Home -> Profile -> QR)
Accountability Board
Updated User Flow
(Quest -> Share -> QR)
A Desire for Greater Community
As users performed tasks for MindShare, one of the participants felt that there may be a lack of community in the current version. Previously, MindShare’s Community aspect comes from being able to join Community Spaces to chat in real-time, or 1-on-1. Users would also be able to do Quests with real-life friends, or join random Group Quests that someone else has already posted. This quote from a participant helped us come to the realization of the issue with our current approach to user-to-user interaction:
“I like being able to vibe with other people…but what if I want to keep talking with them [after a Group Quest, Community Space, 1-on-1] ?” (P4)
While MindShare enables user-to-user interaction through Group Quests, Community Spaces, and 1-on-1 matching, the inability to maintain the connections made in the app defeat the purpose of Community. To address this realization, we updated MindShare to include a new feature: Friends system. By designing a Friends system, users will be able to view and add friends, whether they are real-life friends or new friends they meet in the app. Direct-messaging will also enable that continued connection between users.
Friends List
User Profiles & Add Friends
Direct Messaging
Final Product & Reflection
Final Hi-Fidelity Interactive Prototype
Based on usability testing results, I created a final iteration of MindShare in the form of a hi-fidelity interactive Figma prototype.
Click the phone to check out the final product!
Challenges Met During the Project
Throughout the time this project was worked on, difficulties were found both in the research and design phase of MindShare.
While conducting user research for MindShare, the immediate troubles met were:
Most participants willing to participate were college students as they were more readily available
We had to ensure the most comfortable environment possible for interview sessions, as the topic of mental health tends to be a personal topic for many.
While designing for MindShare and keeping the final iteration in mind, there were concerns regarding:
The mental health aspect of Quests could be better explored; as of right now, Quest could benefit from further research on what particular activities benefit different topics of mental wellbeing.
Gamification of MindShare was kept to a minimal level (levels for progression, titles to obtain, point system). This could lead to a lack of incentive for people to use MindShare long-term, beyond for their own mental wellbeing.
Reflection
With the end of this project, I personally feel there are future steps that could be taken to improve the product.
Moving forward, future work on MindShare would be to continue directly testing the product with our possible end-users to gather more insights on the usability and satisfaction of the app. Specifically, it would be ideal to ensure that the main concept of Quests for mental wellbeing does help with users’ mental wellbeing. To further explore the concept, I believe we could dive deeper into the types of Quests offered, such as researching more about what kind of tasks would help users facing stress or anxiety, for example, compared to other mental challenges. Also, to incentivize our users, we could definitely explore more into rewards for progressing and completing Quests, providing physical rewards related to mental wellbeing. As the MindShare project came to an end, I felt that my team was able to produce a mental health app that does address the problem, to an extent. For me, I feel satisfied with the work done because I was able to design MindShare in a way that specifically met the needs of our participants as we made sure to involve our end-users throughout the entire process of the project and identify issues as we designed.