🔴The Problem
Being a college student can be hard. From balancing school, work, friendships, family, and generally living on their own for likely the first time, it's not easy.
It is not uncommon for college-aged students to find themselves in a mental health rut. Loss of motivation, poor self-image, bad eating habits, anxiety - these are all things many students battle with.
While most universities do have resources to help their students with their mental health - they tend to not be well advertised, leaving those students unaware.
🟢Our Solution
MindMate connects students to the resources available at both their school, and online. Once they provide the school at which they attend, the app will find all the mental health resources available at that location.
Additionally, general, well-known and reviewed websites are also provided, giving them more options for support.
Additionally, general, well-known and reviewed websites are also provided, giving them more options for support.
Sometimes we don't know what it is we need, or even why we're sad. Students are no different, and to overcome this hurdle we implemented short, self-guided quizzes. Using the demographic information attached to their account, and the answers provided in the quiz, the system filters the results down to those most fit to the individual's needs. The user can even bookmark results, for easy repeated access.
Please find below screenshots of the system, a link to the entire Figma project, details on conducted Usability Testing, and a short ~2.5-minute video going through the whole prototype.
🧑💻UI Prototype
Figma Project
Usability Testing
To gauge if the app is both usable and valuable, we conducted usability testing sessions for a few participants who were representative of the target audience.
Strategy
The process in which we interviewed our participants
1) Welcome participant, thank them for their time
2) Remind them that we are testing the design, not their intelligence
3) Ask them to speak aloud throughout the experience their thought process
4) Work through the list of tasks
2) Remind them that we are testing the design, not their intelligence
3) Ask them to speak aloud throughout the experience their thought process
4) Work through the list of tasks
Tasks
The tasks we gave our participants
1) Find the UMaine Counseling Center Link.
2) Access the Online resources and select one of the results.
3) Navigate to the saved bookmarks.
4) Access your profile.
5) Complete the quiz for the University Resources.
2) Access the Online resources and select one of the results.
3) Navigate to the saved bookmarks.
4) Access your profile.
5) Complete the quiz for the University Resources.
Results / Revisions
Primary takeaways from these sessions
1) Moved Quiz CTA's to a more logical position, at the top instead of bottom
2) Redesigned navigation menu to be simpler & use intuitive logos
3) Moved University entry field to the Account Creation page instead of
University Resources and added functionality to edit it on the profile.
2) Redesigned navigation menu to be simpler & use intuitive logos
3) Moved University entry field to the Account Creation page instead of
University Resources and added functionality to edit it on the profile.
Screencast
This ~2.5 minute video walks through the entire prototype.
