GrowSLO

Persona Archetypes

Competitive Audit

In analyzing our (national) competitors, our surveyed characteristics included: A focus on the experience of using the application itself, the visual presentation of information, and the available content on the application (such as tutorials, surveys, and informational videos.)

We ended up determining that each category and application differed in strength in most aspects, but that we enjoyed the visuals of Headspace the best, the information offered on Sanity&Self, and the maneuverability of Mind Shift. 

However, we also recognized that we wanted to include one aspect that could not be found in any of the surveyed applications: locality. This guided our next design direction for it ensured that we would be focusing on aspects of the application that would be unique to SLO County.

User Flows

Needing Resources Finding Someone to Talk To

Local therapists had shared that this was one of the most desired requests, so I wanted to focus on this task first in order to gain a clearer perspective about the needs our users. We determined that our users needed to have easy access to the 24/7 mental health hotline available just in case of an emergency.

Coping Mechanism Trying to Fall Asleep

The most notable aspect of this flow is the "Playlist" section, which includes the Mood category. Subsequent "Moods" are included to guide users to listen to music that corresponds to their mood, curated by recommendations from our primary sources and further direction from Spotify. We learned that our user needed to have multiple options while selecting music so that playlists could align with subsequent moods.

Wireframes

These preliminary wireframes are representative of our thought process when exploring the directions we wanted to go in for certain key screens. After analyzing the mobile applications mentioned in the competitive audit, we found that we appreciated certain aspects, including the following:

• Tab bar instead of a hamburger menu to increase engagement

• Titles of the individual sections/current section in the top half portion of the section screen to increase familiarity

• Different format and layout of individual sections for the menu screen and subsequent page screens

• Illustrations representing the section screen somewhere on the section options

With these considerations in mind, it was our primary goal now to compile all necessary information recommended by our primary sources and interviewees. These acknowledgements also guided our premeditated judgements about specifically which features to include from the competitive and pre-existing applications!

Visual Inspiration

We established this visual direction after we explored the experiences and directions we wanted to go in! We made a group Pinterest page and, after thorough revision, came up with the colors and direction we ended up working with for our high-fidelity wireframes.  

Initial Screen Exploration

Identity System

Reflection

After continuing to design this product, we realized we had been naive in assuming that the application we created would be able to connect all potential users to medical or mental health facilities from a screen. Nevertheless, we were surprised to learn that our critiquers thought it might be possible in the future, especially with the onset of the current pandemic, not yet realized at the time of creation. 

If we had had the resources, I would have wanted to conduct more interviews of potential users who might have already used or navigated through some of the programs referred by the SLO County Mental Health facilities. Our original points of contact from these facilities had expressed the need for more individuals to be able to find out about these programs! They shared that many people didn't come in because they didn't know they existed, not because they didn't want to. We thus assumed that advertising the existence of the app locally would've alleviated some of the lack of knowledge about these programs. And if the application did become realized in the future, I would have wanted to conduct a test run of ads on local social media sites and see if this raised participation rates at all in the resources and programs available. 

Overall, I learned that it was important to be realistic with original expectations and end results. We had expected to address all aspects of mental health complications in SLO County, but were only able to include resources available in the SLO County facilities and media sites. Even so, I'm glad we were able to include the resources we did, even though they definitely could be expanded upon in further for easier access. I absolutely loved creating this application with my team and happy that the possibility of this application is even in the periphery of potential users!

“Your group has grown so much over the course of this project and it's very much reflected in the strength and thoroughness of GrowSLO”

  ​ — Nick Bockelman, Interaction Professor