Menti
Case Study

HOW DID WE APPROACH THE PROBLEM?

For this project, DUR’s minimum viable product would provide medical professionals:

RESEARCH GOALS AND METHODS

Research plan to gather qualitative and quantitative information in tight deadlines

The primary goal of this stage of the project was to design a concept of a platform that will help medical professionals to deal with mental health, in order to test it with users before the next stage of development. So, the main tasks of the research phase were the following:

• define the main user groups;

• understand on what platform (web-based application for desktop or mobile native app) would users prefer to use the product;

• define the key features for the MVP.

We also had a rather tight time frame for this project (2 weeks), so in order to gather as much valuable information as possible in a limited time, I chose these research methods:

• secondary research to learn the existing studies about the mental health problems of medical professionals;

• screener survey to recruit users for the user research;

• in-depth interviews to learn about the mental health needs of medical professionals and the platform preferences;

• competitive and comparative analysis to help define the primary features for design.

Secondary research main discoveries

Multiple studies show that medical professionals often suffer alone and in silence from a variety of mental health conditions. In the majority of cases, this is caused by a workplace stigma that is unique to the healthcare industry. Besides having a negative impact on health care providers’ professionalism, efficiency, and overall quality of life, work-related stress lead to depression, burnt-out, and a high level of suicide cases among medical professionals. Studies taken by Mental Health America show that the quality of mental health of medical professionals decreased even more with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Multiple studies also showed that medical students are experiencing much higher levels of burnout, depression, and anxiety than non-medical students, and are also exposed to the same stigma around mental health. For this reason, medical students were included in the user research.

Screener survey and user interviews

Through a screener survey, we got in touch with 26 people from the medical field, including doctors, nurses, medical students, and other medical professionals. The main goal of it was to recruit users for in-depth interviews. We conducted 5 interviews (2 with medical students, 1 with a nurse, and 2 with medical assistants).

Unfortunately and perhaps significantly, we were not able to interview doctors at this stage of the project. Doctors we reached out to were either unwilling to discuss mental health openly (the majority of cases)or had extremely busy schedules.

So for this stage, our primary design focus became to address the mental health needs of medical students, while keeping in mind that modular design would allow us to include additional target users at a later date.

User research main questions:

View interview questions >

Key interview takeaways

Personas reflect two user groups: students and nurses

Based on the user research results, I developed 2 personas to keep a user-centered approach during the design phase.

COMPETITIVE AND COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Competitors in the mental health space don’t cater to healthcare professionals

I used competitive analysis to learn who other players in this market are, and what main features do they offer. Comparative analysis of the discussion community apps helped to better understand current best practices for discussion platforms.

We learned that the majority of mental health apps offer mental health resources, check-in, and chat features, but do not support anonymity. The current Do U R website does not offer community, chat, and check-in features.

Knowing our users’ needs and what is currently on the market, we set the list of the key features which would reflect the MVP for the first stage of the product and address users’ main pain points.

PLATFORM DECISION

Mobile-first (mobile native app)

Competitor analysis showed that the main competitors are mostly mobile. This hypothesis was confirmed by the user research, which showed that users prefer mobile for almost all personal tasks, including such as tracking their mental health and communication.

FEATURE PRIORITIZATION

Key features in the design

DESIGN

User flows created around the core features of the application

The following user flows were developed based on the research outcomes to focus the design process around developing the key features of the application.

TEST & ITERATION

Usability testing revealed the need for a cleaner visual experience

I conducted 5 usability tests on the mid-fidelity wireframes to check if the major tasks are intuitive and clear for users. Test results pointed to changes needed on the calendar and the journaling feature.

NEXT STEPS & REFLECTIONS

Plans for the next stage:

• Conduct more interviews with medical professionals to better understand their needs;

• Create a high-fidelity prototype for usability testing;

• Perform more usability testing and iterate based on the feedback;

• Interview medical organizations to learn how better link the application to them in order to guarantee security while maintaining the confidentiality of the usrs.

Reflections

This was an exciting project, full of empathy and creativity. It wasn’t easy. For me, as a Research Lead, the main challenge was being unable to interview as many medical professionals as was planned. However, I am proud of how my team and I were able not only to find a workaround but leverage to the maximum our findings from secondary research, screener survey, in-depth interviews, and thorough competitor analysis. This is another great example of how constraints boost creativity and thinking outside of the box.

View the prototype

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