Heal the Healers:

A web app design to support mental health for medical professionals

My Role:

  • UX Research: screener survey, user interview, market research, testing & feedback

  • UI Design: wireframe, style guide, UI iterations

  • Project Management

Time: 2.5 Weeks

Team: 3 UX Designers

Problem

Did you know depression, burnout and suicide occur at higher rates in the medical profession?

Physicians are twice as likely to suffer from depression and anxiety compared to non-physicians. However, due to the stigma of mental health issues in the medical field, medical professionals face additional barriers in addressing their mental wellbeing needs.

Medical professionals need to a solution to attend to their mental well-being and receive support without repercussion caused by the mental health stigma in the medical field.

Background & Goals

https://docur.my.canva.site

We were a team of three and took 9 key steps to complete this design sprint

There is an opportunity to better support the mental well-being of medical professionals.

This project is about creating a web application to support Doctors Under the Radar, an organization which is committed to improve mental health of medical professionals and eliminate stigmas in the workplace.

The goal is to develop a web app which increases awareness and practices of mental well-being among medical professionals. 

Process

“In the surgical field, everyone is expected to be tough and work hard. You don’t want to appear as you are complaining.”

— Surgeon

User Interview

Talking to someone who understands is an effective way to cope with mental well-being challenges.

I had reservations about the response rate for the screener survey, given the demanding nature of medical professionals' lives. To overcome this challenge, we proactively leveraged our personal networks to arrange interviews. We were able to talk to 15 medical professionals, including:

Interview Takeaways

  • All participants feel comfortable sharing their well-being struggles with someone, but this person has to be trust-worthy and empathetic, preferably understanding the specific challenges for medical professionals.

  • There are general concerns around sharing mental well-being struggles with colleagues due to a variety of reasons: unhealthy work culture, potential backlash, and appearing as incompetent.

  • Most participants prefer discussing mental-wellbeing issues in a private setting (e.g., 1:1 meeting). However, they are open to share in a bigger, more public forum if it is anonymous.

  • Participants manage their mental well-being through various methods. Yet, when faced with difficult experiences at work, they choose to push through the work day without processing their feelings.

  • Most believe the key to improving mental health is to have reasonable workload and schedules.

The fundamental solution to enhancing mental well-being for medical professionals requires transformations of the medical system. Nonetheless, I believed we can still do something to provide value.

Competitive Analysis

A plethora of mental wellbeing applications but no solution dedicated to serve medical professionals

I performed a competitor analysis on popular mental health applications and a resource forum for medical students called Student Doctor (based on an interviewee’s suggestion) to understand the available solutions.

Competitive Analysis Takeaways

  • There is no mental well-being application focused on the needs of medical professionals.

  • Popular applications such as Better Help (online therapy) and Headspace (guided meditation) do a good job at meeting the users’ needs and capture large market share in their domains.

  • The fact that some users seek advice on mental health topics on Student Doctor suggests a potential interest within the medical community to have discussions on mental health.

Instead of competing against the plethora applications on therapy and meditation, I believed we should bring unique value to our users.

Design Direction & Design Studio

How might we fill the gaps between available solutions and the mental well-being needs of medical professionals?

Based on our research, medical professionals need catered solution for their mental-welling due to:

  • Demanding nature of medical work with long hours, intense workload, and low tolerance for mistakes

  • Emotional exhaustion from constantly handling high-stress and even life-and-death situations

  • Compounded mental-health stigma - As professionals who are expected to cure others, their own mental health issues are often deprioritized or seen as a threat to their competence

Therefore, it is important to provide a platform for medical professionals to:

  1. Have a venue to safely share their thoughts and feelings

  2. Seek advice and support from other medical professionals who may have similar challenges

  3. Have conversations with a broader community on mental health and raise awareness

  4. Find resources tailored to the needs of medical professionals

With these ideas in mind, I facilitated a design studio session among the team to generate ideas. We created paper sketches and gave feedback to each other.

  • Design Studio Sketches

    Chat Feature Ideation

    Design Studio Sketches

  • Design Studio Sketches

    Community Feature Ideation

    Design Studio Sketches

  • Design Studio Sketches

    Mental Well-Being Video Content

    Design Studio Sketches

MedSpace Sitemap

Site Map & User Flow

We focused on 4 major features: communities, direct messages, mental-health videos, and resources

I created user flows to outline how users will complete these 3 actions: sign up, join a community, and message other users.

I created a sitemap to outline the high-level information architecture:

  • Communities: Medical professionals can explore and join groups that they feel related to. Within each community, they can create posts and comment. 

  • BreakRoom: This virtual space for direct messages and live chats mimics the break room in real life where medical professionals chat with fellow practitioners.

  • MedTalk: TedTalk quality videos exclusive on MedSpace. Here, experts talk about all things related to mental wellbeing for medical professionals.

  • Resources: Curated content and resources for medical professionals.

  • Sign Up & Onboard

  • Join a Community

  • Message Users in Break Room

Style Guide

We used blue to invoke the feeling of calm and used orange as highlights to sprinkle moments of positivity and energy.

We chose the colors and typography based on research on color theory and accessibility.

Since medical professionals prefer to be anonymous to feel safe online, instead of using real names and photos, they can create a user name and choose an avatar to represent themselves. The cartoon avatar also serves as a tool to make MedSpace more personable and friendly.

User Testing

Both testing participants thought the features offered by MedSpace were useful and were excited about its potentials!

Round 1 | Low-Fidelity Wireframes

Objective: Collect feedback on features and layout before moving to higher fidelity

Participant: Occupation Therapist (Participated in User Interview)

Round 2 | High-Fidelity Prototype

Objective: Collect feedback on the high-fidelity prototype and identify next steps

Participant: Physician Assistant

Julia and I facilitated the usability test in Figma. The user was able to navigate MedSpace and understand how to use the features. We identified some improvement areas based on her reactions and feedback. A few things to update in the future:

  1. Add an “About Us” section to explain our mission and values

  2. Add more options for mental well-being issues during profile setup 

  3. Add “Location” as another category for users to browse communities

“I would use this if it exists! I love that it’s simple and straight to the point!”

— Physician Assistant

Wireframes & Prototype

Check out the final wireframes and prototype of MedSpace!

  • MedSpace Home

  • My Communities

  • Community Posts

  • BreakRoom Messages

MedSpace New User Onboarding

MedSpace Main Screens

Reflection

What went well:

  • Khayla, Julia and I leveraged each other’s strengths and collaborated effectively. We provided each other constructive feedback and built upon each other’s work.

  • We made research-based design decisions with the obsession of providing the best possible experience for medical professionals.

What I learnt and what I wish I had done differently:

  • Asking good questions is difficult! I realized some of our interview questions were overly focused on our hypothesis, potentially introducing bias. Moving forward, I will continue to work on designing user interviews that yield valuable insights centered around the problem we aim to solve, while maintaining a holistic understanding of our users.

  • Take time to prioritize the type of device with which to start the product design. While we jumped into developing a web app solution due to the project requirement, in retrospect, we could have considered starting with the mobile version to cater to busy medical professionals who may prefer the on-the-go accessibility.

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