Crayon Care
Helping UMD students access trustworthy mental health support and resources when they are both on and off campus.
Awards
3rd Place @UXTerps Makeathon 2022
Year
2022
Role
Product Designer
Platform
Mobile
The Problem
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact nationwide, affecting our physical and mental health. Specifically, mental health has been a growing concern for college students. According to a 2020 research study from NLM, out of 195 college students, 138 (71%) indicated that their stress and anxiety had increased due to the pandemic. One of the many college campuses that have seen an uptick in mental health needs is my school, the University of Maryland (UMD), whose counseling center saw a 26 percent increase in after-hour crisis calls.
How might we help UMD college students access trustworthy mental health support and resources when they are on and off campus?
Product Goals
Empower
Empower students to seek appropriate mental health choices through a fun and friendly interface.
Communicate
Make resources and complex health information simple and more accessible to students.
Include
Encapsulate all types and levels of mental health issues specific to every individual
Research
Methods
Literature Review
To understand documented trends surrounding college students’ struggles with mental health, we read and analyzed scientific papers and public articles from various sources such as Mental Health America, The Trevor Project, and the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.
User Interviews
Four UMD graduate students were interviewed about their experiences surrounding their physical and mental health while on campus and at home.
Competitive Analysis
We conducted an analysis of existing mental health and self-care apps, such as UMD’s Counseling Center, WellTrack, Headspace, and Calm to understand the existing solutions to this problem and to find pain points for us to improve.
Literature Review
We took a look at the resources provided to get an understanding of the issues that students face when it comes to mental health and the barriers blocking them from getting proper care.
We also looked into best practices for providing health-related content that motivates users to improve their mental state.
Sources - College Students: Mental Health Problems and Treatment Considerations, Health Literacy Online
We learned that students struggle with a wide range of problems including depression, anxiety, substance abuse, unhealthy eating habits, etc.
Barriers keeping students from receiving care are:
Lack of awareness about mental health issues.
Lack of awareness of the resources available.
Financial barriers to obtaining proper care.
Continuing care on campus and off campus.
Not having access to trustworthy means of care.
Competitive Analysis
We took a look at existing mental health apps to understand how they assist users with improving their mental health. We mainly focused on how these apps understood the specific concerns of the users and tailored the experience to them.
Some of the apps analyzed:
BetterHelp
Noom
Talkspace
Better Help
Noom
Talkspace
Talkspace
Design Takeaways
Extensive On-Boarding
Create an in-depth and extensive onboarding process that surveys the user with a wide variety of demographic, health, and lifestyle based questions.
Variety of Treatment Options
Offer the user a wide range of treatment options, to choose from. It is important to guide the user gently, but not force them into a specific type of treatment. Give the user flexibility to decide what is right for them.
User Interviews
For the class project - INST710 : UX Research Methods, we conducted interviews with 4 graduate students to find out how college students are managing their physical and mental health.
From this interview data, we found that UMD students feel:
Encouraged to be healthy when in groups.
Feel physical health and mental health are intertwined.
Feel they need external tools to stay healthy.
User Interview Research Insights
Research Insights
1.
Students experience a wide array of mental health issues with substance use, anxiety, and depression being the most common.
2.
Barriers keeping students from receiving care are lack of availability of resources, awareness, and financial means.
3.
4.
College students may receive services from mental health providers inside and outside the campus and there is a need for a unified experience.
It is important to tailor solutions to the specific student’s needs to motivate students to continuously work towards improving their mental health.
Personas
Mental Health Screener
A key component of our app is empowering the user to find the right mental health solution for their needs at a particular point in time. To calculate the severity of the symptoms that the user is experiencing and to provide the best results, we employed a mental health screener created by Mental Health America.
Benefits
Quantitative calculation allows accurate rankings of possible solutions
Multiple tests specific to each type of mental illness
Demographic-based calculation
Initial Sketches
Designs
Suggested Treatment Options
Based on the results of the self-assessment, the app provides the user with a suggested ideal treatment option. A visible scale shows the user the level of treatment, ranging from simple self-help resources to inpatient care. The user is able to scroll up and down to select from higher or lower levels of care if the suggested option does not meet their needs.
Home Dashboard
The home dashboard provides the user with a variety of mental health maintenance and treatment options.
A self-assessment quiz allows the user to get personalized treatment suggestions quickly even in times of crisis.
An appointment manager allows users to schedule and track appointments at both on and off-campus treatment centers.
A therapist finder allows users to find doctors located close to them and provides options for both on and off-campus treatment and also checks if insurance is accepted.
Self-Assessment
We have created a self-assessment screener, based on a Mental Health America assessment that allows the user to get quick help, whether it be during times of crisis or when the user is just feeling down.
Resources
Located in the main navigation bar, and thus available at almost all times, the app provides the user with a searchable list of resources on various mental health topics. The suggested resources section provides the user with topics based on the results of the initial onboarding assessment and any subsequent self-assessments.
Resources Continued…
Initial Onboarding
Upon downloading and opening the app, users are presented with a multi-step onboarding process that allows the app to generate a personalized experience. The data collected during this process is used to guide the user to various mental health resources that are most applicable to their situation, demographics, and physical location.
Events
We found through background research that universities often organize dedicated mental health workshops and events. Additionally, according to our interview data, we found that students feel motivated and encouraged to stay healthy while in group settings. However, we also found through our research that students often lack awareness about the available resources.
In order to solve this problem, we created an events page that aggregates and allows easy search and filtering of both on and off-campus mental health events. This page is located persistently in the nav bar allowing for easy discovery and providing access at all times, no matter where they are in the app.
Profile
The profile page is part of the app’s initiative to push for continuing care, rather than just for singular acute instances. This profile page allows the user to toggle on or off-campus resources and allows them to adjust their account details (location, school, demographics, etc), upload their insurance information, and track their appointment and messages history. As many college students live both at home and on campus, we have also incorporated the ability to link a “home therapist” which serves as a way to quickly access this resource when not on campus.
Strengths
Simplified communication and reach to help students make the right choices for their needs.
Empowering users to find the optimal mental health solution for their unique concerns.
One stop resource to find trustworthy resources curated by UMD rather than resorting to randomly searching for results on the web.
Direct communication with therapists regardless of on or off-campus status
Weaknesses
Lack of interviews from medical providers.
Missing perspectives from users who have ongoing mental health treatments.
Could not validate due to time the design in different crisis situations.
Could not test due to time the design with actual users.
Proposed Next Steps
Include UMD mental health professionals in the design process to ensure all students' needs are met.
Provide more features to support students with ongoing treatment from either home therapists or on-campus therapists.
Perform usability testing to validate our solution and to ensure the product addresses the user’s needs.