CogCoach

A mobile mental health solution for high-stress college students that encourages change behaviors and promotes personal growth.

Role

Research

Onboarding design

Conversation design

Design system development

Teammate

Sylvia Sun

Date

June 2020

Methods & Tools

Secondary research

Competitive analysis

Botmock

Adobe XD

OVERVIEW

Paired with a social entrepreneurial firm outside of DC who recently received funding from a mental health government agency, I conducted a competitive analysis, wireframed, prototyped, and tested an empathetic onboarding experience as apart of the project's second phase of development (June 2020).

Working bi-coastal with a partner, we first gained a solid understanding of the users, market, and problem then dove quickly into ideation and design during this short, month's long project.

PROBLEM

College students are struggling, yet few seek help

The American College Health Association's 2018 Annual Survey found that 60% of students experienced debilitating anxiety, 40% of students were too depressed to go to class or hang with friends and 55% felt hopeless in the last year.

Yet, only 10–15% of students seek help at campus counseling services.

CogCoach seeks to reduce the mental health stigma for young adults by making support accessible and relatable.

USERS

Meet Andy - the overwhelmed college student

Andy P. is a sophomore studying pre-med. He is overwhelmed with stress and anxiety, trying to live up to the expectations his parents have set on him being a first-generation college student. He spends most of his time alone studying, unable to feel comfortable trying to express himself to his roommate or classmates.

Andy's fears judgment from his family and peer group, who feel seeking mental health support is a sign of weakness. So Andy struggles with negative self-talk and crushing anxiety in silence, leading to a negative effect on his overall health and well-being.

SOLUTION

CogCoach helps college students like Andy by combining micro-learning mental wellness content with remote telehealth scheduling capabilities.

Our goal was to design a supportive, empathetic onboarding experience for a college student in a moment of distress - 3AM, can't sleep, mind racing - by gently introducing personalized content and a lifeline to a professional if they need it.

ROLE

Still in early its early phases, my role for this project was to conduct secondary research which informed the chatbot conversation and onboarding flow design. I also developed a style guide and bonus pages to build out the mindfulness meets teletherapy concept based upon my learnings from the competitive analysis.

The team met twice weekly and coordinated via Asana with the co-founders. My partner, Sylvia Sun and I discussed our approach, shared resources during secondary research, and provided valuable feedback during design reviews. Our partnership was successful because of the early rapport we built and consistent communication throughout.

CONSTRAINTS

This month’s long remote project amidst the pandemic had its challenges outside of our control - shifting timelines, family emergencies, and inaccessibility of research. We worked with what we had to meet the deliverables on time.

PROCESS

Understand the teletherapy app space

The teletherapy mobile app space is dominated by BetterHelp, who is the parent of three user-specific services: TeenCounseling, ReGain (couples), and BetterHelp (Individuals). Why? They keep it simple with live video calls. The mobile onboarding approach of Betterhelp lacks traditional usability heuristics and a whopping 19 intake questions, similar to what one would fill out in a therapist's office.

The other major player in the teletherapy app space from which to gain insight is TalkSpace, who offers an inferior product - interactive journaling with a counselor on their time - but superior user experience and interface.

TalkSpace onboarding learnings: gather basic information, connect with the empathetic language, offer therapist choice immediately.

Sketch the Conversation

Focusing on empathetic language and connecting with reluctant college students, the onboarding language is supportive and accommodating, emphasizing being a better version of yourself. It establishes similar basic information as TalkSpace, but CogCoach's personalized user stories begin with understanding one's experience with mindfulness practices. After scribbling out the conversation, I thankfully discovered Botmock which made prototyping straightfoward.

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First name - followed by an exclamation to show enthusiasm

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Problem - "Pick the topic most important to you" is a gentler framing of "Why are you here?"

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Experience with mindfulness - establishing Dr. Dee's credibility and personalizing suggested content

Botmock the Conversation

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The final experience question in the conversation connects with college students where they are in their mental health journey in a friendly manner. Personalized messaging for each path include:

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No experience - inform and associate

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Some experience - relate and encourage

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Experienced - celebrate and support

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Prototype the Conversation

The prototype connects further with a human touch by introducing Dr. Dee as the users guide on this journey. Dr. Dee knows because she has been there and is here to offer support.

Design Onboarding Flow

The three core benefits connect with college students in their language; offering them a solution to what's been weighing them down.

Three messaging goals for the onboarding word choices include:

It takes practice to be your best. Don't ignore it. Just show up.

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Connect with peer mentors who have been in your shoes and understand what you are going through

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Connect with licensed professionals if you need it

The first iteration attempted to connect the phrase "practice makes perfect" to letting go of perfection through mindfulness. This phrase proved confusing during usability testing and was changed to relate mindfulness to the practice of a sport.

Develop a Styleguide

During the competitive analysis phase, the team observed various gradients featured prominently on mindfulness apps. The emerald and storm paired together elicit a calming effect for the stressed college student. The dusty rose featured in the brain logo is the perfect complement to the cool gradient. A bright pop of saffron for all buttons provides a pleasant and modern feel to appeal to college students.

Make recommendations for additional pages

On top of the conversation design and onboarding flow, I went above and beyond to mock up some ideas for future features that came up in our team discussions including a discussion page, as well as scheduling feature.

TEST ASSUMPTIONS

Usability tests revealed an anticipated point of confusion: icons. In addition to the tasks, an A/B test was run on the navigation bars. All users read the chat flow carefully, but only one of the five read the tooltips on the subsequent 5 screens.

The most critical area of need is matching the navigation bar with the real world. Users were not connecting the SOS and life preserver icon to “book an appointment.” Users first went to “Connect” as opposed to “SOS” to complete task 5.

Icon bar B is replaced in the final designs. An additional round of testing is necessary to determine if the 5 screen tooltips are necessary with the improved icon bar.

KEY LEARNINGS

Intuitive icons make early tooltips unccessary

80% of users blew past the tooltips without reading the icon descriptions. Considering the most troublesome "book an appointment" task, the next iteration will have a single tooltip in context to reduce the pages in the onboarding flow.

No Replacement for Live

Gaining an understanding from competitive analysis, users want as close to an in-office experience as possible with live video visits. A deeper understanding of live virtual rooms on mobile is necessary to develop a viable product.

NEXT STEPS

Privacy Concerns & Future Features

A more holistic understanding of privacy concerns related to teletherapy is necessary to develop a viable product. Medical HIPPA regulations, as well as app security, is new territory that would require deep investigation from a design perspective.

Some enduring questions remain, such as what caution/privacy policy statements are necessary for the teletherapy space when dealing with sensitive information?

If more time permitted, additional features to further engage college students include:

Greater interactivity
Improved appointment scheduling feature
Daily check-in or journal - share with your therapist who offers regular feedback. This “interactive journaling” is the core of the TalkSpace model, plus one video call per week.
Emotions tracker - “How are you feeling today?”