MindBuddy

How can we support mental health during pandemic lockdowns?

‍

For my thesis project in Social Innovation, Communication and New Technologies, I decided to work on creating an app for wearable devices that could address the problem of mental health during pandemic lockdowns.

‍

Living in an anomalous situation due to the current health crisis, the issue of mental health has, sometimes understandably, taken a back seat. It is important, however, that it returns to be addressed with the urgency it deserves; the ongoing emergency, in fact, has presented us with new challenges, such as long periods of isolation, which worry the scientific community. Doctors and psychologists fear the increase of depressive disorders, anxiety and PTSD, especially in young people. The intention of my thesis was, therefore, to design an application for wearable devices that could help people to keep track of their mental health during lockdown periods. The project doesn’t have any medical validity and is not intended for people with diagnosed psychological disorders.

‍

The design work began with a first phase of gathering of the requirements which was divided in two steps: a search in the existing literature and the implementation and distribution of a questionnaire to understand the needs and the interests of users; the questionnaire was composed of 19 questions and was answered by 350 users.

Subsequently, I analysed the data obtained from the questionnaire in order to represent users through personas and scenarios and to outline the design requirements. The interviewee found the project to be useful and interesting and around 80% of them affirmed that they would use the app.

‍

Given the enthusiasm and the support that the answers to the questionnaire showed, I decided to keep the idea of an app for Apple Watch and to make a few improvements.

After this, the scenarios were reviewed in order to include the app and three storyboards were created.

Finally, I devised a database for the application through a conceptual model and moved on to the prototyping phase. This last step involved the creation of a mockup and a test of the latter with three different users. The mockup was developed using Adobe XD and Adobe Photoshop. At a graphic level, I tried to maintain a style that resembled that of native Apple Watch applications in order to ensure a pleasant visual impact for the user when switching from an external application to MindBuddy. For the same reason the texts, except that of the logo, were made with the font used by Apple on these devices, San Francisco (SF) Compact. I chose to use dark colors as a base in order not to tire the eyes and to use blue for the logo graphics as, in the color psychology, this is associated with peace, calm and health.

‍

MindBuddy is an app for Apple Watch that helps users keep track of their mental health during pandemic lockdowns. The developed product allows users to keep track of the following parameters: sleep, physical activity, sedentariness, heart rate, screen time, hydration and emotional state (manually updated by the user).

The application aimed to have a very simple and "friendly" interface that could also be customisable through the use of Memoji. It uses the collected parameters to give advice, acting as persuasive technology (microsuasion), and weekly summaries, providing the user with a clear picture of their habits from which they can draw conclusions and make changes.

‍

MindBuddy helps the user keep track of their mental health during periods when it is put at serious risk but when it is hard to find the necessary support due to the pandemic situation. It is positive, intuitive and friendly, focusing on creating positive habits rather than diagnosing problems.

‍