Empowering Emotional Wellness
🏅 Winner, Microsoft Design Challenge
PROBLEM STATEMENT
The task was to identify a problem in the area of “Health & Well-being” in the Indian context and design an inclusive and trustworthy solution that uses digital technology to solve the identified problem. The problem that I have decided to work on is the emotional wellness & mental health of Indian students.
COMPETITION DETAILS
A national-level design competition that involved case study submission and presentations to Microsoft Design Leadership
MY ROLE
Worked on the entire design process, including user research, ideation, prototyping, usability testing, and crafted the final presentation video
Emotional Wellness and Mental Health of Indian Students
We often come across news articles highlighting distressed students, who are unable to cope with the academics, personal issues, and peer pressure. This leads to anxiety and depression, thereby resulting in drug and alcohol abuse and sometimes taking even more extreme steps. Such prevailing issues bring out the need of the hour: the addressal of the emotional health and well-being of Indian students.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines mental health as “a state of wellbeing in which every individual realizes his/her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community.”
According to the findings of a National Mental Health Survey held in 2016 conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS):
At least 13.7 percent of India’s general population has various mental disorders; 10.6 percent of them require immediate interventions.
While nearly 10 percent of the population has common mental disorders, 1.9 percent of the population suffers from severe mental disorders.
Depression among Indian university students: According to research conducted by the Dept. of Applied Psychology, Pondicherry University, nearly 37.7%, 13.1%, and 2.4% of the students were suffering from moderate, severe, and extremely severe depression, respectively. A total of 717 students were recruited following the multistage cluster sampling method, and data was collected by a specially designed structured questionnaire, an academic achievement record, and a standardized University Students Depression Inventory.
Research
To get more insights on the emotional wellbeing and mental health of Indian students, I conducted primary research on the undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD students of IIT Delhi. The targeted users were the IITD students from various departments falling in the age group of 18-25.
Survey: Conducted a survey among IIT Delhi students and gathered data with 90+ responses. Collated the obtained data from the above interviews to identify pain-pleasure points.
1:1 User Interviews: Conducted one-on-one in-depth conversations with the users to understand their motivations, pain points and pleasure points.
The majority of students are not comfortable with the idea of visiting a counsellor due to the fear of being judged.
Students believed that visiting a counsellor is a time-consuming process. The counsellor might not be available all the time.
Based on my user research, I created a persona to represent target user groups. Persona made the design task at hand less complex and guided the ideation processes, and it helped to achieve the goal of creating a good user experience for the target user group.
Problems Identified
Unavailability of quick and accessible counselling:
Counselling services demand time investment. Students, doubtful of their problem and the appropriate expert to approach, eventually ignore their issue until it becomes troublesome.
Fear of being judged by society and lack of trust for seeking professional help:
The existence of the prevailing notion in India—“Mentally ill people seek guidance”—deters” students from seeking professional help.
Fear that they will be judged for sharing their sufferings.
Seeking unknown advice along with feeding personal information poses security concerns, calling for an anonymous mode of communication
Lack of resources to relieve day-to-day stress:
Lack of physical activity among students owing to their busy schedule, they often do not find ways to release their stress and hence, take up unhealthy approaches to relieve themselves.
Pre-existing solutions not catering to certain Indian demographics:
Lack of availability of counselling services in Indian regional languages is limiting introverted students from opening up to a counsellor. Existing counselling services thereby tend to exclude a part of our population.
Envisaged Solutions
To address the problems identified in the UX research, I decided to come up with a digital solution in the form of a mobile application: CAREPLUS.
24/7 anonymous and secure chat platform connecting users to dedicated experts instantly:
24/7 chat option enabling students to connect to available experts even at odd hours.
Chat is kept anonymous and 100% secure. Therefore, trust is built in the users so that they can share their concerns without the fear of being judged.
“Self-Improvement Articles” motivating users towards a better lifestyle:
Self-improvement articles provide users with different approaches to deal with distressing situations by themselves, boosting their self-confidence by bringing in the sense of achievement.
Easy Scheduling of Voice and Video Call Appointments with Trusted Experts:
Users, depending on their problem, can select psychologists based on their profile, ratings, and reviews.
Video & voice calls can be scheduled.India is a country with multiple languages. Counselling support available in regional languages adds to the comfort of the user in addition to catering to the diverse society.
Scientifically designed “Relaxing Activities” to relieve day-to-day stress:
Stress-relieving activities such as scientifically designed games and listening to relaxing music can alleviate daily-life stress and boost self-confidence amongst the users.
“Self-Development Programs” providing a systematic approach to meet users’ goals:
Programs have been crafted from experience and research of experts to help bring about healthy changes in the lifestyle of the user without external aid.
Availability of the app in Indian regional languages, thereby including the non-english speaking population:
Provision of the app in regional languages also allows non-english speakers to seek professional help through the app.
Taking into account the user needs and frustrations, I created wireframes and rough sketches, which eventually helped to achieve the goal of creating a good user experience.
CAREPLUS will ensure that all Indian students get emotional support instantly from trustworthy and experienced counsellors. Stress relieving activities and support articles will help students lead a healthy lifestyle and achieve their goals.
