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User Research Project

Mental Health Self-Care:

How to Sail Your Own Waves

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We live in a generation of ever-worsening collective mental health, due to the pandemic, family trauma, loneliness, and the list goes on and on. Nationwide, almost one in five people (47.1 million) in the U.S. are living with a mental health condition. However, there is a lack of mental health professionals nationwide, and more than 150 million people reside in parts of the country where there is a nationally declared deficit of mental health experts.

 

Mental health is a lifelong journey. When we can’t receive help from professionals, we need to learn to navigate our state of mind to conquer the storm. That’s when mental health self-care came in handy.

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The purpose of this 7-week individual research is to answer the two following questions：

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How can we design products and services that help people find the mental health self-care methods that work for them?

What are some behavioral change interventions that can help people make lifelong mental health self-care habits?

Initial exploration and surveys

Since the aim of my survey was to explore a wide range of mental health self-care options, I didn't want to go deep into the psychology and details just yet. Also, considering mental health is a serious topic that is hard for people to open up about in surveys, I wanted to save the reflective questions for the interviews.

Results:

The survey collected 17 responses, with 64.7% of the participants aged 18-24 and 35.3% of the participants aged 25- 34. 41.2% of the participants have never been formally diagnosed with a mental health disorder, and 11.7% of the participants have been diagnosed with more than one mental health disorder. 41.2% of the participants reported that they encounter anxiety, depression, or panic attacks "very frequently".

Initial insights:

  • Lots of people encounter negative mental health conditions but they withdraw from seeking professional help. People avoid therapy because of the price and the complex reservation process.

  • People like approaches that make them forget about their current conditions or bring them closer to the loved ones.

  • Compared to my hypothesis, everyone has their own effective approach to curing their mental health conditions.

Interviews

Objective & Planning 

To explore the nuanced process when people explore the right mental health self-care approach. What are some characteristics of the right option?
To understand the holistic process of people's mental health journey.
In order to dive deep into people's psychological processes, I wrote down lots of open questions such as "Tell me about one time you suffer from a mental health downturn. What was the trigger, and how did u gradually recover from it?" During the interview process, I listened more than I spoke, and I utilized active & unbiased listening approaches. I always made sure people trusted me enough before I move on to deeper questions.

Results:

  • I interviewed 10 people over the course of 3 weeks. 2 people have very healthy mental health; 2 people are currently struggling with mental health issues but not actively participating in self-care/professional care; 6 people have been diagnosed with mental health disorders but overcame it.

  • Every single interviewee who has experienced mental health issues tried therapy at some point in their life. However, only 3 people consistently went through the whole process.
    4 interviewees reflected that they thought going to therapy or searching for mental health self-care was a signal of being weak.

  • 8 interviewees mentioned doing yoga, stretching, and meditation when distressed. However, 3 reflected they didn't like guided audio when doing them.
    Every interviewee mentioned that when they feel anxious and distressed, they go to their close friends for validation and encouragement.

  • When asked about what Youtube videos they watch when they need to soothe themselves down, 6 out of 10 interviewees answered that they enjoyed watching videos that are unrelated to their personal lives.

Codesign

Workshop 1

For the first assumption, I create two axes, one representing the timeframe from the beginning of a mental health downturn to the end, the other representing one’s level of mental health control. I will choose participants who are in stable mental health and those who are still battling with disorders. Participants can choose the mental health self-care options to map out the methods they choose over the period of time, and how each of the methods helps improve their mental health.

Workshop 2

For the second assumption, I let the participants to write down YouTube video titles that they would actually click into. They can also doodle the preview of the video to show me what the video is like. In this way, I get to see their ideal video type. If there’s no mental health disorders keywords in the titles, my assumption is right.

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Insights

- People make their own choice about the right mental health self-care method based on their personality, interest, and level of stress. Most of the time, they just want something to distract them from their current distress.
- Users who overcome mental health disorders are more self-conscious. They have more clarity over what works for their bodies and maintain a higher level of mental health in general, compared to those who suffer but never seek help.

- Users turn down professional help often for four reasons: complex reservation systems, not trusting the therapists, money, and social stigma.
- People who maintain a higher level of mental health often have a set of repeated mental health self-care routines that provide them with control, clarity, and confidence.

- When choosing mental health self-care approaches, users avoid media or services that hint they have mental health issues.

Recommendation

Design criteria: 
MUST help people with mental health disorders feel trustworthy and safe. COULD provide professional help such as mental health first aid hotlines and therapy.
SHOULD help people to actively control and navigate their lives.

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Direction 1: How might we change the perception of mental health self-care to make it less heavy for the general public? In this way, people will be more likely to explore the self-care methods that work for them. Possible pathway: start promoting a more neutral concept in replacement for "mental health self-care", such as"

Direction 2: How can we help people clean off social media-fueled anxiety?
Possible pathway: an API that automatically mutes all your social media notifications or hides the likes & comments

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