Moodify mobile app
helps people with depression modify their bad mood, increases mood awareness, and strengthens the connection with their close ones.
Moodify dashboard
helps therapists to update client’s status, detects suicidal thoughts, and increases the efficiency in counseling.
Context
More than 300 million people suffer from depression globally, it is the leading cause of disability. While there are reasonably effective treatments for depression available, it is difficult for mental health specialists to assess the patient’s daily status. There is a need to understand the contexts between appointments in order to optimize therapeutic outcomes. Moodify aims to provide seamless mental health progress reports to improve the therapist-patient relationship. It also helps early detection of suicidal signals, and facilitates timely intervention.
Timeline: 4 months
My Roles: UX Research, UX Design, Visual Design including logo, illustrations, and motion design.
Mobile app features overview
Mood check-in
Remedy
Assessment
The Process
01. Initial Design Question
02. Expert Interview
I interviewed 3 therapists. My questions include:
I found…
03. Depression support groups survey
I posted questions in Facebook depression groups and revceived a lot of responses. My questions include:
The results:
Things people with depression do to distract their mind:
04. Secondary Research
The following 2 conceptsI learned plays vital roles in understanding potential users and finding solutions.
05. Personas
To better understand the frustration and needs of patients and therapists, I interviewed 2 people with depression and a clinical psychologist.
06. Iterated Design Questions
Based on research insights, I have a deeper understanding of people with depression and therapist’s needs, and narrowed down the design question to 3 aspects:
07. Inspirational Exploration
To understand the basic features and the different product strategies, I conducted competitive analysis of popular mental health apps on the market.
Moodify aims to provide a wide variety of interventions to disrupt the negative feedback loop, so I took a deep dive into 4 apps below that provide interventions and listed their strengths and product focuses.
Most of the apps focus less on on data sharing and intervention. I understand Moodify has to focus more on data sharing and intervention.
08. Ideation Sketching & Concept Testing
I explored possible timing and methods that has potential to disrupt negative feedback loop, and tested the concepts with 4 people with depression and 2 therapists. 10 out of 15 ideas were selected for the following reasons.
09. Time dedication plan
80% of my time was dedicated to the data sharing and intervention features, 20% of my time on the basic features, mood check-in, mood factors, and journal.
10. user benefits and value propositions
11. Mid-Fidelity Prototype
11. Visual System
Purple is the primary color, it contains more blue in it to have a cooler and calmer effect. Yellow is the supporting color, it represents optimism and courage. Active buttons are in yellow, it serves as sunlight leading the users to cope with depression.
12. Usability Testing, Findings, and Design Changes
Product 1: Moodify mobile app
Participants:
• Group 1 (G1): 3 patients + 1 family member of a patient
• Group 2 (G2): 2 therapists
Product 2: Moodify dashboard
Participants:
• Group 2 (G2): 2 therapists
Focus:
• Readibility of the instruction
• Findability of the main features
13. Feedback From My Mentor
After implementing my mentor’s feedback on the dashboard design, I conducted a final round of usability testing with 2 therapists. They were able to read the charts without confusions and finish the tasks faster with fewer clicks.
14. Information Architecture
Scenario 1:
On a Sunday afternoon, you see “Moodify“ advertisement on app store. You download, try to onboard and learn about what features you can expect.
The feature introduction helps to align expectation with new users. It allows the users to understand how the product might assist them.
Scenario 2:
Now you would like to check-in your first moos, select mood factors, and record your thoughts by writing in the mini journal.
One therapist mentioned we usally focus on what made the patients unhappy. It would be helpful if we could find ways to encourage patients to record their positive moods.
Moodify tries to engage users to write more about happy moments by providing special graphics, snow globe and magic mirror in the mini journal pages.
Scenario 3:
Now you have checked-in your mood for 3 days, you are able to unlock and view the progress report.
People with depression usually react to negative thoughts and beliefs unconsciously and automatically, often without realizing where their behavior and feelings come from.
Sources of mood charts allow users to understand the mood factors and causes to help them practice emotional awareness.
Scenario 4:
You would like to connect with your therapist by scanning the QR code.
Mood check-ins, factors are automatically shared with the therapists after connecting.
Scenario 5:
After a long working day, you are exhausted. You don’t feel like talking but still want to let your close ones know how your day went.
Select the mini journal entry you feel comfortable to share with the therapist or the close ones.
Scenario 6:
You are not feeling very well today. You are a bit anxious and stressful about the project deadline. You are trying to distract your mind by exploring the “Remedies.“
Zentangle
Jars of fears
Affirmation
Sky lantern
Grounding songs
Take a walk
All the remedy ideas were inspired from the depression supportive groups in Facebook. During my research, I noticed many of them were looking for “distractions” in the support groups when depression attacks. The most common distractions that seem to work are drawing, positive words, music, emotional awareness games, and taking a walk. I incorporated these elements in “remedies” pages.
Moodify will automatically provide or suggest a remedy under 3 circumstances:
• After bad mood checked-in
• Step count lower than 100 at 4p.m.
• 1 hour before bad mood attacks based on the user’s mood check-in data from the previous month.
Scenario 7:
You are alone in your car by Lake Washington. A push notification pops up, reminding you to take a mental health assessment.
People with depression usaully lack motivation. Sometime, it could be difficult to complete an easy task. Moodify provides reminders and fun graphics for mental health assessment in order to make the mental health assessment more engaging. By consistently taking the weekly mental health assesment, it empowers therapists to understand the progress of their clients, to detect suicidal thoughts, and to provide help in time.
Scenario 8:
Imagine you are a therapist, the next counseling session starts in 5 minutes, you would like to quickly update the client’s recent status.
•Update client’s status in 5 min
•Detect suicidal thoughts
•Efficient counseling
16. Reflection
Be flexible, patient, and empathetic
This is my first individual project, it was completed during the pandemic. All the interviews, surveys, and usability testing were conducted remotely. It was especially challenging to contact and recruit people with depression to participate in my research. Sometimes the participants canceled the interview due to bad mental status. I learned to be more flexible, patient, and empathetic in communication. I also found ways to build trust and engage them during the interview and concept testing. I appreciate their help and kindness in sharing the depression journey and experience with me.
Define the product value proposition
A good value proposition makes a product. I’ve learned to evaluate and differentiate the product value, focus on the #1 thing that determines whether people will continue using the product, prioritize features that bring more values to the users.
Don’t be afraid to give up a little ownership of ideas
It’s good to have assumptions but get attached to ideas that might limit options and lead to unnecessary pressure. I’ve learned to be more open-minded, absorb feedback from potential users. Beyond everything, the real feat of ideas is functionality and what users love in practice.
Special thank to my mentor, Lauren, who had been guiding and supporting me throughout the project in this challenging time. ❤️
