User Experience

Report
Report Issued
19 / 11 / 2018

Jigsaw Mental Health App

Report Date

This report was carried out

19 / 11 / 2018

to explore the possibilities

of creating a mental
health app by performing
user experience research
targeting 12-25 year olds.

tel | 091 632 657 Ballyhugh, Tubber Road,

info@theuxstudio.ie Gort, Galway, Ireland.
www.theuxstudio.ie H91 Y9C8

UX & UI Mobile Apps Websites HMI Design

Table of Contents

03 The Idea

05 Why Jigsaw?

06 Jigsaw Stats

07 My World Survey Findings

08 Other Mental Health Apps

10 Our Survey

11 Survey Findings

14 App Aims

15 Initial Ideas

16 Concept

17 Persona Development

22 User Journeys

23 Initial Wireframes

24 Branding

25 Design Development

26 Design Ideas

27 Next Steps

2
The Idea

The concept for this project came about from conducting research into the Mental
Health space in Ireland. As mental health has been discussed further in modern times,
particularly around young people, we wanted to discuss what could potentially be
achieved to support this age group in particular.

By conducting preliminary research on current mental health organisations based

in Ireland, we noticed that none of the these organisations had a mobile application
in operation. This is where our idea was sparked, and from there we went to work
furthering our research into the current mental health app market and also seeing if
anything was being done for younger people and their wellbeing in particular.

As the findings from the ‘My World Survey’ showed, 77% reported they would be likely
to use the internet as a source of help, which made us think that an app could be well
received as a source of information for those who need it.

The mobile app market has accelerated at a tremendous rate due to the rise of the
smartphone. Because our target audience consists of some of the most frequent app
and smartphone users, we feel that a mobile app would be an ideal medium to connect
with potential users.

Offering young people another means of support is important as it can be difficult

for them to approach someone about how they are feeling. Having an app that is
specifically aimed at young people could encourage them to open up about how they
are feeling and support them through the right methods.

The overall goal of every mental health organistation in Ireland is to provide the right
support to each and every person who is in need of it. Obviously this is a very hard goal
to achieve, but doing as much as possible towards this goal should be the next best
thing.

3
The goal of introducing an app under Jigsaw would be to help users understand and
identify issues and triggers in their lives while also promoting positive mental health.
The app could allow the 1 of 5 young adults (based on the ‘My World’ survey) who
know they need professional support to get some information and coping strategies
that would hopefully help them recognise that it would be best for them to seek the
professional help they need.

In this report, we will cover the research carried out to date. The ideas and information
we used to form our design concepts. We hope that the app would not act as a solution,
but as an informative and encouraging tool.

4
Why Jigsaw?

Jigsaw are the only mental health service in Ireland with an exclusive focus on 12-25
year olds. Having this demographic can be difficult to deal with as this age group are
more susceptible to serious issues with their mental health. It is also a complicated age
group as development into adulthood must be considered.

The introduction of a youth advisory panel was a great move forward in the running of
the service as they can have a big influence on the understanding and decision making
process.

As our proposal suggests, we believe creating a mental health app could be a new
method of referral for people to access mental health services, and we consider Jigsaw
to be the ideal model to develop this app under their values and aims moving forward
to promote positive mental health in young people in Ireland.

Similar to Jigsaws beliefs, we too agree that breaking the stigma of mental health is
important. Along with early intervention so that a young persons well being is preserved,
we see the mental health app acting as a middle man in this process as it will identify,
inform and support a young person with any issues and encourage them to progress
onto contacting Jigsaw directly and getting the appropriate support.

Jigsaw was the obvious choice for us to develop the idea of a mental health as they
focus exclusively on 12-25 year olds which is our target demographic for the app.

5
Jigsaw Stats

A big part of our research and our interest in teaming up with Jigsaw was reading
through their facts and figures from their annual report 2017, and also the ‘My World
Survey’. Some of the figures are startling and it played a big role in shaping our ideas for
the project. The statistics from Jigsaw are also important as they are specifically about
the target group which gives them more importance.

Some of the significant statistics are listed below that played a big part in the foundation
of the design process for the application.

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My World Survey Findings

The findings from the ‘My World Survey’ were another foundation for our research into
how the app would function. The most noteworthy outcome being the importance of
‘One Good Adult’ in a young persons life. This was something we wanted to incorporate
and emphasise in the finished app design.

Other significant figures to emerge from the research was that 53% of young adults who
attempted to take their life reported that they did not access help or support. We felt
this was such a high percentage that we needed to find ways to reduce this number.

Another figure which stood out to us was that 77% reported they would be likely to
use the internet as a source of help, this is a growing trend amongst Jigsaws target
audience and is something that should be targeted accordingly.

20% of young adults indicated that they had problems but did not seek professional
help despite feeling that they needed it. The fact that 1 in 5 young adults felt like this
is sad to imagine and because of this, one of the fundamental aims for the app is to
encourage those to get in contact with Jigsaw or another organisation.

43% reported that they had thought their life was not worth living at some point. This is
a very worrying figure and one that many would not have imagined, including parents.
This is where the ‘One Good Adult’ scenario would be beneficial as that person could be
a supportive ear to those who need it and can determine whether that young person is
having any suicidal or seriously damaging thoughts.

We feel that providing a resource that can inform young people about different mental
health issues that they, or their peers might be going through will encourage them to
not only seek support from organisations such as Jigsaw, but will encourage them to
support each other and help them to recognise the signs when they or their friends are
struggling.

7
Other Mental Health Apps

We recognise that the current market has an abundance of Mental Health Apps, but
we also realised that non were specifically targeting at young people. The content and
features of other apps were also something we looked into throughly as we wanted to
understand the noticeable trends and what hasn’t been considered to date.

We focused mainly on the most popular apps in the market and finding the reasons for
this through reviews from customers and online publishers. At this moment, the most
popular mental health app appears to be Headspace with 10 million+ downloads on the
Google App Store.

5 Reasons why Headspace seems to do quite well are:

1. It’s calming right from the start.

2. There are meditations for multipe needs.
3. There’s features for children.
4. Track your progress.
5. Animations are very welcoming and clever.

While these are all valid points for its popularity, there are some pain points with the
app such as the need of in-app purchases which although aren’t necessary, they do
allow you to access much more of the apps features. Also the fact that the app is solely
focused on mindfulness may not be a preference for everyone who is looking to feel
better or practice positive mental health wellbeing. It is also something where you need
to be in a quiet space with little distractions to perform the exercises, which may not be
available to everyone.

Another App and organisation that inspired us to look at mental health services for
young adults is Smiling Minds. Smiling Minds is an Australian organisation who have a
host of resources to help adults and young adults address and cope with mental health
issues. Australia has a really positive track record with mental health education and this
was one of the reasons that we focused in on Smiling Minds.

The app is designed to promote mindfulness in schools and provides tailored classes
for different age groups, as well as for things such as sports teams. We feel like the idea
of incorporating classes on mindfulness and promoting positive mental health from an
early age can have an extremely positive impact on the students and their managing of

8
their mental health as they progress through school and college.

One of our initial ideas was to create an app that could be used in schools around
Ireland, much like Smiling Minds is used in Australia. We thought that the benefits of
creating this sort of app would lead to a potential increase in engagement due to the
fact that it is being used in school and then hopefully at home as well.

After some reflection we decided that this idea of having a Smiling Minds style app in
Irish schools would be more of a long term goal. There are obviously a lot of hurdles
to get passed in order to introduce an app in to the Irish school system and we feel
that we would have a better chance of achieving this in the future if we can release a
successful mental health app under the umbrella of a hugely successful mental health
organisation like Jigsaw.

9
Our Survey

During the user research period, we thought that doing a short survey would be a good
idea to help us establish certain ideas we had for the app itself. The survey questions
covered things such as Smartphone used and current knowledge of mental health
resources in Ireland.

The results of the survey and questions have been listed below:

(Section 1 - General Info)

• What age are you?
• Are you currently living in Ireland?
• What Gender are you?
• Are you in school or college?

(Section 2- Smartphone Use)

• How often do use your smartphone?
• What kind of apps do you use the most?
• Do you use any health/fitness tracking apps?
• Do you think a mental health app could have a similar benefit to a health/fitness
app?
• If you have/had a mental health app installed on your phone, would you have
concerns about other people seeing it on your phone?
• What features would you like to see in a mental health app that you think would
benefit young people?

(Section 3 - Mental Health)

• Would you have someone to talk to if you were having a problem?
• Have you ever availed of a counseling service?
• If you have availed of a counseling service, was it of benefit to you?
• If you were having a problem , who would you be most likely to seek help from?
• Do you think the area of mental health is properly addressed in your school/
college?
• Do you think a certain amount if time in schools should be dedicated to mental
health awareness and practice?
• Are you aware of any mental health services in your area?
• Do you feel having a peer who shares a similar problem to you would be of benefit
to understanding and coping with that problem?

10
Survey Findings

Over a three day period, our survey got received 125 responses from varied
demographics. Not every question required a inputted response but most questions got
full responses.

This survey gave us a good insight in to some of the current attitudes and knowledge
of mental health services in schools and communities. Instead of displaying all figures
from the results such as the general info, we picked out the most surprising or one-
sided (needs rewording) results to give you an idea of what our participants thought.

11
12
Along with the graphs displaying the participants responses which were all multiple
choice or tick a box answers, we had an open question which asked: What features
would you like to see in a mental health app that you think would benefit young people?
The responses we received covered a number of potential features and issues that
young people felt could be beneficial in an app. These potential features were grouped
together to give us a clear picture of what were the most popular topics or features
discussed.

13
App Aims

Establishing the aims for the app was very important as we needed to always focus
our efforts into developing the appropriate reasons why this app is considered
for development in the first place. That being said, these are the primary aims we
established:

• Free for everyone to use, regardless of their background or reasons for use.
• An informative service on as many topics as possible.
• A service for helping young people identify their problems appropriately.
• Encouraging early prevention for the benefit of a young persons wellbeing.
• Encouraging young people to seek further help through the Jigsaw service or
alternative appropriate service.
• Normalising mental health problems amongst young people.
• Promoting the importance of ‘One Good Adult’ in a young persons life.
• Suggesting coping strategies based on the users input.
• Understanding what can trigger a particular problem and how it can be avoided.
• Being a place that is non-judgmental and open for a young person to express their
feelings in a secure way.
• Promote positive mental health amongst young people.
• Reaching those who are hesitant to reach out.

With these aims outlined, we could focus our attention on what values we wanted from
the app. These aims were composed from our own ideas after some research, the ideas
and values of Jigsaw, findings from the ‘My World Survey’ and our own short survey
aimed at young people.

14
Initial Ideas

Initially we came up with some ideas for the features that would be included in the app.
These ideas were explored before we did any user research, so they were based off our
own ideas.

We broke down the demographic based on academic levels (junior cycle, senior
cycle, college). This was to help us determine the type of problems each group could
encounter in those age groups, and to categorise the problems under certain areas.
As you can see from the picture below, there was a wide range of problems young
people can face, we also documented typical feelings that young people would
experience.
From here, we thought that having information and support for each problem
and feeling in one place could be beneficial as a feature of the app. This could be
accomplished by having similar categories to the ones we had on the post-it notes, in
an easy to access format based on the year the user was in. (See below)
Along with info cards, as we called them. There was the idea to have support cards,
which would provide options of support to the user, whether it be through following a
peer and their story, or coping mechanisms.
As we delved into research and user testing, we realised that these ideas would be
quite difficult to achieve due to the sheer volume of problems that would need to be
covered.

15
Concept

After compiling our research we held a number of brainstorming sessions in order

to come up with a concept for how our app would work. During these brainstorming
sessions we really tried to make sure that every feature had some grounding either
Jigsaw’s philosophy, the My World Survey or the responses to our survey.

One thing that really stuck out to us from our own survey was the face that 76% of the
responses claimed that it would be easier to understand and cope with an issue if
they had a peer that was going through the same situation. We thought that this was
something we should incorporate in the app and it can be seen in the ‘Peer Stories’.

When the user downloads the app they first enter their date of birth (or year) and
gender. The date of birth will direct them to either a junior stream (12 - 16) or a senior
stream (17 - 25). The only difference in these streams will be the detail of the content
presented and the topics being discussed.

After the user will be asked if they want to tailor what content they see first. This feature
was added incase there were users who were struggling with something specific and
wanted to bring that topic to the forefront of the lessons. If the user doesn’t wish to tailor
the lessons they can continue with the set lesson plan.

Each lesson begins with the user selecting a peer that they can best relate to. After
this they will read some information about that specific peers day to day life. This
information will detail how they are feeling and what they are doing to feel this way. It
will not directly state these things, but it will encourage the user to acknowledge these
feelings and what is triggering them.

After reading about the peer, the user will be asked some short questions about the
peers feelings and the triggers that are causing these feelings. Helping young people
to understand these feelings and why they come about is a huge step in promoting
positive mental health.

In the last part of the lesson, the user will be introduced to some coping tools or
mechanisms that are designed to help them in situations that their peer is going
through. These can be anything from CBT and mindfulness techniques to journaling and
mood tracking.

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Persona Development

After coming up with an initial concept, we moved forward to creating some personas
that would reflect some of the potential users that might use our app.

The 4 personas we created were based on -

• A young person who is struggling with the stress of school exams.

• A young person who is interested in learning about positive mental health.
• An older person who is struggling with coping with life after school.
• An older person who is worried about a friend or family member who is struggling
with their mental health.

Creating the persona’s would help us then figure out the user process of the app, which
in turn, lays out the foundations of the app for us to develop upon.

Personas encourage us to dig deeper. Designing personas meant that we would have
to have a good understanding our the target group. This was done by digging into as
much data as possible that was available to us.

During the process of creating the personas, we were able to question preconceived
ideas as a collective, so that we could think in the right way, and allowed us to get on
the same page with our ideas.

The following personas were developed in a way that we tried to cover the age range
and some of the most common issues that young people face.

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 Sarah McCarthy
Bio
Name - Sarah McCarthy
Age - 15
Location - Fermoy, Co. Cork
School Year - 3rd Year

“
I feel like I’m always going at 100 miles
an hour to try and get everything done. I’m
constantly overwhelmed and can never make
time for myself.

Key Goals
Sarah is doing her Junior Cert this year and is
constantly stressed because of the amount of
work she has and the out of school activities she
takes part in.
She has not been sleeping well and recently
experienced a panic attack after she forgot to do
a piece of homework.
Sarah has never used a mental health resource
but is interested in learning some relaxation
techniques and how to manage panic attacks.
maths grinds on Tuesdays.
Sarah has dinner with her family at about 6:30
every day and straight away after she starts on
her homework. Her homework generally takes
2-3 hours and then she studies for an extra hour
and a half.
After study Sarah is ready for bed and will have a
shower before scrolling through her phone until
she tries to go to sleep at about half past 12.

Access to Technology
Day in the Life
On weekdays Sarah is in school from 8:30 until
3:50. In the mornings Sarah is usually sluggish
and tired and will often skip breakfast to stay in
bed that small bit longer.

At lunch time Sarah usually eats with friends Apple iPhone 6 Toshiba C660-21M Apple iPad 2nd Gen
but lately there has been extra maths classes at
lunchtime to help them to prepare for the ex-
ams at the end of the year so she eats her lunch Frequently Use Apps
there.

Sarah gets the bus home at 3:50 and arrives at

her house at 4:30. She usually has a quick bite to
eat before she has to head out again for piano
lessons on Mondays and Wednesdays and extra
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 Thomas Barr
Bio
Name - Thomas Barr
Age - 13
Location - Dundalk, Co. Louth
School Year - 2nd Year

“
The work we were doing in school was
interesting and I think it is definitely an area
I would like to know more about. You hear it
talked about a lot now.

Key Goals
Thomas has always been curious and keen
on learning and when they were starting
to cover Mental Health in SPHE class he
was keen to learn more and when the app
was recommended by his SPHE teacher he
downloaded it.
Thomas is keen to find out more about Positive
Mental Health and what kind of tools and
services are available. Thomas has always been
active and feels mental health should be as
important as physical health.
After school Thomas usually gets some food
at home before heading off for GAA or soccer
training. He trains for 1 hour on Mondays,
Wednesdays and Thursdays and then has soccer
games on Sunday mornings.
After training Thomas does his homework and
then watches TV with his parents for an hour or
two before heading off for bed at around 11 O’
Clock.

Access to Technology
Day in the Life
Thomas attends St Matthews community
college in Dundalk from Monday to Friday.
He usually wakes up at around 8AM and has
breakfast before being driven to school for 9AM.

Thomas usually heads down to the local Centra Apple iPhone 4s

for his lunch with his friends and spends the hour
laughing and joking and occasionally playing
football in the local park. Frequently Use Apps
Thomas enjoys school and looks up to his SPHE
and PE teacher who is also in charge of the
school football team that Thomas plays on. He
enjoys SPHE class and thinks that it is important
to discuss the issues covered in the class.
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 Paul Smyth
Bio
Name - Paul Smyth
Age - 23
Location - Salthill, Co. Galway
Occupation - Barista

“
I find myself withdrawing from my friends
and really avoiding social events. I would like to
do more but my mind always takes over and I
end up talking myself out of things.

Key Goals
Paul has recently dropped out of college and After work he will either get some take away
is trying to make a living working as a barista for dinner or else he will get some noodles or
in Galway. During his last year in college Paul something he can make quickly.
struggled to make it to lectures and spent a lot
of time drinking and taking drugs. For the evening he stays in his room and watches
series on Netflix. If his friends text or call he will
Since leaving college he has withdrawn himself nearly always ignore them or make up an excuse
from his college friends and often goes days as to why he won’t come out.
on end on his own avoiding friends and house-
mates. He has no energy and is afraid he is going
to lose his job because of how down he always
feels.

Paul has been receiving counseling once a

month for the last 6 months and his counselor Access to Technology
recommended this app for external support.

Day in the Life

Paul works 6 days a week in a coffee shop on
Shop Street in Galway. His usual shifts are from Samsung Galaxy S8 Apple Macbook 13”
9AM - 5PM. Paul generally gets up at half 8 and
makes his way straight in to work. Occasionally
if he doesn’t feel up to it he will text one of his
Frequently Use Apps
workmates and ask them to cover his morning
shift for him.

During the day Paul drinks a lot of coffee in work

and for his lunch break at 1 he will have some
coffee and a muffin while smoking a cigarette.
20
 Tara Flynn
Bio
Name - Tara Flynn
Age - 19
Location - Tullamore, Co. Offaly
School Year - 2nd Year College

“
I see her struggling and I really don’t
know what to do or say. It’s hard when you can’t
really relate to what they’re going through. I feel
like I am useless.

Key Goals
Tara started college in the University of Limer-
ick 2 years ago and is living in a house full of her
close friends.
Recently she has noticed that one of her best
friends has been down and not really been
herself. She occasionally hears her talking about
having problems at home and has noticed that it
is really affecting her.
In the evenings Tara and her housemates take
turns cooking and will eat together at around
7PM. After eating they will either hang out at
home, go to a movie or get ready to go out in
town.
Tara and her housemates are very close and she
is worried that she might not be able to look out
for one of her friends properly.

Tara wants to help her friend but doesn’t know

how to talk to her or what to say.

Access to Technology
Day in the Life
Taras college lectures usually start at 9AM,
except for on Tuesdays when she isn’t on until 12.
Because of this Tara and her friends will usually
go out to town on a Tuesday night.

Tara generally wakes up at 7:30AM to get ready Apple iPhone X Apple Macbook 15” Apple iPad Pro
for college and will have a cup of tea and some
toast with her housemates before leaving. She
will then walk in to college with her housemates Frequently Use Apps
and go to her first lecture.

When she has some time off during the day

or at lunchtime she will meet back up with her
housemates and go for lunch or hang out in the
communal area in the Student Union.
21
User Journeys

Following on from personas was user journeys, which allowed us to map out the
process from start to finish. This included the users downloading the app, to what they
did after using it. This was conducted to help us understand the flow of the app and
how it would differ for each user. Using the personas we created, we could map out how
they would interact with the app in a step by step process.

The key headings for our user journey were; Discovery, Setup, Learn, Cope and After-
use. These headings indicated the key moments in the use of the app by a user. We also
had headings for; mobile app, customer emotions, opportunities/improvements. These
helped us track what actions the users were performing with the app, the emotions they
were feeling at each stage and also what possibilities they were to further improve the
apps use.

22
Initial Wireframes

With our concept nailed down we moved on to the prototyping phase of the project.
This phase started with sketching out rough drafts of how the user might navigate
through the app.

As the screens were refined through sketches, they were done out in more detail on
Mobile phone screen sized pieces of card and laid out to show the flow of the app and
the different screens involved in each stage of the app. These screens were moved
around and edited multiple times until we were happy with how the user would navigate
through the app.

The screens were then digitised in medium-fidelity and linked together using protoype
software (Adobe XD). This allowed us to begin prototyping interactions between screens
and different transitions that might be used when navigating through the application.

23
Branding

When designing the app concept we wanted to make sure that Jigsaws branding was
apparent throughout the app.

We felt that there was an opportunity to use the Jigsaw brand to create a sort of
caricature that would follow the user through their journey. Our idea was to create
different Jigsaw piece characters whose appearances would reflect the topic in each
lesson. This light hearted character idea was inspired by the monster like characters that
work so well for Headspace.

Other uses of Jigsaws branding include the user gaining a piece of an overall Jigsaw
after they complete each lesson, This idea would act as a sort of progression or
gamification of the lesson process and would hopefully encourage some of the users to
come back to the app.

The moodboard below was used to direct our designs in the right direction, for
unification and identificiation to Jigsaw branding.

24
Design Development

With the user flow, interactions and branding nailed down, we then moved on to
creating a first draft prototype of the Jigsaw Mental Health app.

Creating a high-fidelity app mock up allowed us to properly look at how each screen
interacted with the last. We were conscious when designing the UI that the tone and the
content delivered to both the junior and senior stream should be slightly different and
using Jigsaws branding guidelines we were able to design the streams so they seemed
different, but the same.

The current UI is the first of many drafts we intend on creating if we are to pursue this
project with Jigsaw, but we can already see huge potential with Jigsaws branding and
design language.

(Just a reminder that these designs are not final and are only demonstrating the concept
for the app direction)

25
Design Ideas

26
Next Steps

If this project is to be picked up by Jigsaw then we feel that the next steps would be
to move back to the Research Phase. With a rough concept in mind and access to the
amount of research material and resources that Jigsaw could offer us we feel that we
would be able to drill down even further and gain more valuable insights that might
inform potential app features.

We really feel like there is a gap in the market for a well designed app to promote
positive mental health in Ireland and we feel like Jigsaw is the ideal organisation to help
bring this app to life. In such a short space of time Jigsaw has done amazing work in
communities all over Ireland and we really think that a Jigsaw backed mobile app could
have the same levels of success with young people as apps like Smiling Minds has in
Australia.

27