Matter of Mind

2021

Project brief

In India, mental health is taboo and only 7.3% of its 365 million youth seek help. In the UK, more than 20,000 young people - about 1 in 16, don’t make it into their second year of university. A survey of 1809 students held in 2019 reveals that 37% of respondents believe their state of mental wellbeing has deteriorated since they started higher education, and these problems are only compounded with the pandemic. Cove-L started out as a personal project that would focus on connecting students to mental health professionals in my hometown of Ludhiana, Punjab. COVID catapulted mental health on the forefront. I enhanced my project on mental health COVE-L to create ‘MatterofMind’ supported by 3 co-founders.

timeframe

3 months

industry

MedTech

MatterofMind

is a smart mood tracker platform that allows students to facilitate psychological self-care. The user centered application ensures‍:

Motivation

Personal motivation through the use of social support.

Connections

Connections to mental health professionals

Evidence-based

Streamlined processes via evidence based questionnaires like PHQ-9 to track progress

management

Sentiment Analysis and AI to help users manage their emotions and thoughts

01 user persona

Abhishek is a hardworking UK based student who has a passion for problem solving and complex puzzles .With the worsening COVID in the UK, Abhishek is under strict lockdown and unable to interact with his house-share and college friends. Abhishek feels stressed and would like to seek help.

02 wireframes

Wireframes were created to track a user’s journey throughout the prototype, and were tested to highlight the flaws and problems within the design. With a similar profile of users between Cove-L and MatterofMind, we used the wireframes created for Cove-L testing them against the parameters envisioned for MatterofMind.

03 first run

A first run iteration was produced to test with interviewees and gain feedback.

04 mind mapping

A series of interviews with consultants and students alike were held to understand the needs of the users, after deveoping the initial First Run prototypes. A mind map of the product functioning was developed highlighting the user’s key pain points. These include discomfort and acceptance of mental health and accessing available support services.

05 user journey

The illustrations showcase the solution to Abhishek’s pain points, and the images are representatives of the tested wireframes. As we further develop MatterofMind, I will be utilising a range of technologies such as Sentiment Analysis, Gale-Shapley derived algorithm matching of therapists, students and personalised pages for Universities in the UK.

06 mvp

The final solution was presented to our mentors and customers in a pre-demo day pitch at the end of our second iterative design cycle. We used the feedback to enhance our product and fulfil our users’ needs. As Product Lead, I swiftly amended the prototype to reflect the required changes.