EMBRACE
AI For Mental Health
An AI-enabled product for trauma-survivors to manifest their future
$2.5K funding won for further research
~28% boost in user satisfaction for each round of iteration
Unconventional UX Research
Usability Testing
UI Animation
ML Model Coding
Fast Prototyping
Project Goals
To develop tools to assist trauma survivors in promoting their well-being and warding off prolonged stress
Design Goals
To streamline and validate innovative forms of interactions and user experience regarding mental progress mapping
SIGNIFICANCE
Catching the wave of AI, EMBRACE explored innovative user interfaces using gamification and bibliotherapy for mental healthcare.
The project also investigated unconventional UX research methods for emotion visualization and mapping, providing actionable insights for future studies.
As a UX and product designer, I gained valuable experience handling sensitive topics during user research.
TEAMS
Sean Huang (Me) - Design Lead & Researcher
UX research | Analysis | Prototyping | UX & Content design
Gabriela Torres - Project Manager
Angelica Chincaro - Researcher
Caroline Brazil - Advisor
Alexandra Rigobon - Advisor
BACKGROUND
Starting from understanding people's post-pandemic griefing experience, my team found several sub-topics that are noteworthy, which also become the research topics of each phase of this mental healthcare project:
1️⃣ helping people out of bereavement griefing through bibliotherapy;
2️⃣ helping trauma survivors jumpstart their therapy by shorting their waiting time for treatment through gamification;
3️⃣ help anxious professionals manifest bright future through daily self-affirmation video creation
TOOLS & METHODS
Research & Analytics
Primary Market Research | Desktop & Remote research | ML Coding
Personas | Priority Matrix | DFV (Desirability-Feasibility-Viability)
Figma | Miro | Notion | Google Colab
Design & Testing
User flow | Storyboarding | Fast Prototyping | Hi-Fi Prototyping
Figma | Miro | Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop
, After Effects, Illustrator) | Webflow
OVERVIEW
In a course project , my team were given a topic in response to the post-pandemic mental health challenges. Starting with the topic Bereavement, we find insights universally applied to various mental health challenges:
Trauma Never Healed
Many adults carry unresolved traumas from a younger age.
Atomic Habits
Daily rituals in shaping positive mindsets are powerful.
Language Matters
Language on emotional self-perception have huge impacts.
This project consisted of three main phases of three sub-topics under the umbrella of mental healthcare topic:
1️⃣ Bibliotherapy
A tailored phygital bibliotherapy platform for young grief survivors
Highlights | Phygital journaling for UX study | Copywriting
UX Challenges | Accurate emotion mapping & visualization during onboarding process
Solutions | Phygital card sorting | Dynamic survey questions by ML coding
2️⃣ Gamification
"Learning from the past" - An award-winning AI-powered platform kickstarting therapy
Highlights | new UI exploration
UX Challenges | interaction design of "converging emotions"
Solutions| Gamification
3️⃣ Daily Video
"Learning from the future" - A daily brain-training video tool for aspirational individuals
Highlights | design sprint
UX Challenges | Long-term user engagement
Solutions| Gamification
Given the huge amount of content to be showcased for all phases, I pick the essential highlights of each phase.
PHASE 1 HIGHLIGHTS
All-Phase Research & Analysis
Interviews | Mindmap | Persona | User Journey | Competitor Analysis | Ideation | D.F.V.|User Flow | Tech Overview | Content Design | UX/UI Design | Fast -Prototyping | UX Writing
Besides that mapping humans' emotions is complicated, several new facts added to the difficulty of our user research of this project:
People don't speak up
Participants were initially reluctant to speak up due to the sensitive nature of the topics.
"Self-Paced"
Participants showed a noticeable preference emerged for self-paced activities over real-time interviews.
I initiated three rounds of fast prototyping to test which ways of interactions better answer the following How Might We question:
How Might We Nudge People To Describe Their Emotional Status And Try To Visualize Their Emotions Correctly?
Reason: visualizing emotions proved to be a conundrum in historical practices: it could be pixel-perfectly detailed as well as complicated in UX design, which makes the visualization process complicated.
3 rounds of Prototyping
1st Round - Digital Card Sorting | Result: 🚫
The 1st option proved engaging but occasionally perplexing - participants felt it hard to memorize every emotion card.
The 2nd option prove worse - it confused some users due to its numeric system - people felt it hard to calculate their emotional proportions, and they intuitively feel emotions are too complicated to be categorized only into five to six genres, even though some fundamental research did so.
1st option - users select the most relevant digital cards of emotions online
2nd option - users weigh different emotions numerically
2nd Round - Coding For Questionnaire | Result: 🆗
Instead of a One-Size-Fits-All questionnaire, this Colab model suggested questions based on users' answers.
This prototype had a favorable reception, as it allowed for adaptability - participants felt more comfortable answering questions concerning emotions, especially when questions came in bulk.
The machine learning model categorize emotions at the back stage instead of asking users directly to do so;
For each section, questions are made unbiased encourage users to answer more for more accurate results.
3rd Round - Paper-Based Card Sorting| Result: ✅ ✅ !!
Inspired by the UX research method of journaling, we prototyped the same cards in the 1st round of prototype in hard copies and surprisingly…People loved it!
People could always track their selections, and the cards are always there for them to digest the content on the cards at their own pace, emphasizing the importance of tangible interactions even in a digital age. Everything is private and self-paced.
A Side Note | A Long Way to Go for Emotion Visualization
Concerning emotion recognition, I did an follow-up UX audit on several fad apps (e.g., How We Feel) featuring emotion management. Apps like "How We Feel" still rely on manual emotion selection, highlighting an evident gap in the market and a pressing need for intuitive UI paradigms.
PHASE 2 HIGHLIGHTS
Award-Winning Case study
Journaling with Serious Gamification
In the previous research, I learned from people that trauma never truly healed but rather company people forever. More scientific desktop research added, my team discovered a new realm: a more mild conversation with our inner-self, instead of measuring & mapping everything explicitly.
Self-paced Journaling
Reflection | Enabling private inner talk
Inspiration | Helping identify specific mental models
Serious Gamification Supported by Scientific Research
Relfection | Humans can "learn from the past"
Manifestation | Humans can also "learn from the future"
Brains| Human brains are gullible in positive ways
A Need for Therapy
Patients | more than half of the people seeking therapy gave up due to long waiting time befire getting the 1st therapy
Therapists | People tend to overestimate their trauma healing power; the waiting time is crucial for the success of therapy
How Might We Visualize The Process Of “Discovering The Hidden” To Help people Unearth And Understand Their Inner Self?
Reason: Imagine discover the Monster or Angel - the meta power that hinders or empowers people in their daily mindsets, actions and perceptions. it requires both design sense to raise engagement as well as scientific support (i.e., why it works).
Solution - An AI-Powered Gamification Web App for Self Journaling & Education on Mental Health | Result: ✅
The playful gamified prototype in Figma, incorporating elements reminiscent of board games, allowed users to identify, confront, and work through their personal "monsters" or challenges while also celebrating their "angels" or strengths.
Despite that the gamification system was far from being perfect, the stakeholders (therapists) supported this idea and potential users loved the interactiveness, as a self-guided tool before official therapy.
This project was awarded the 3rd prize at MIT Art Startup Incubator Competition with $2.5K funding for further research.
Key Feature - Discovering "Monsters" & "Angels"
The system analyzed users journaling content, and introduces a gamifified exercise to affinitize their similar experience to discover the hidden positive/negative power.
Why it works - When a problem is written, it's half solved; when an achievement is marked, it's twice stronger.
Key Feature - Finding the "Ultimate Villain" & "Super Angel"
From 8 Aspects concerning happiness, users are asked to proceed the process of affinitiziting "Monsters" and "Angels" to identify the meta power, or root cause of their traits.
Why it works - When a core problems in unsolved, it repeats in various forms in one's life that can be traced if paid attention to.
PHASE 3 HIGHLIGHTS
Journaling with Daily Routine for Future Manifestation
One of the biggest learnings from the second case was that envisioning a future with atomic habits in daily life is more powerful than learning from the past. Hence, me and team did another pivot - to delve into people's daily manifestation with better envision of the future.
Self-paced Journaling
Challenges | Humans won't be able to always stay excited & energized, thus making it hard to soldier on.
Facts Supported by Scientific Research
Patience| Manifestation doesn't come overnight - It takes time, and the timing varies from case to case.
How Might We Guide Users Through Potential Obstacles And Progress Milestones During Their First Week Of Manifestation practice?
Reason: In a recent concept model for "anxious dreamers" (people with both strong aspirations and high levels of anxiety and self-censorship), users were asked to record a daily video and rewatch it the next day. While this seems simple, anxious dreamers need clear goals, identification of roadblocks, and a detailed explanation of the experience before taking action.
Solution - A Hero Journey-Like Visualization | Result: ✅
I conceptualized the user's journey as a mountain ascent, visually representing the user's path with challenges and achievements. Peaks symbolized milestones or achievements, while valleys highlighted potential setbacks or challenges.
The visual was well-received by both the team and potential investors, clarifying the concept of “daily videos for rewiring brains” very effectively.
Compared with graphs that purely showcase ascent or positive progress, my graphs shows truth in people's daily manifestation routine help them feel more authentic.
IMPACTS 🎉
While Embrace ranked as one of the longest and most complicated UX projects for me, I gained rich experience in user research on sensitive topics, managing stakeholders' expectations and requirements, and conducting user testing of unconventional features. More than that - I converted myself into an active manifestation learner!
$2.5K 🎉
funding for further research
~28% 🤩
boost in user satisfaction for each round of iteration*
(Based on the satisfaction survey after each phase)