Eece is a mental services platform, that allows users to book therapists & workshops for better mental health.
Why Eece?
It's the combination of two words ”Easy” & ”Peace”, Easy stands for easy booking, and Peace stands for peace of mind, offering a pleasant experience during the journey toward mental health.
How the story begins
In my first UX design course, the tutor asked us to interview the classmate who sat next to us, my classmate shared her struggles of being a freshly graduated designer, which leads to her curiosity about getting to know more about psychology. This inspiration hit me so strongly, cos I found that not only she but also friends around me and myself also have the same issue.
Mental health is so important that linked to every aspect of our lives, it urged me to build up a project connecting people to mental treatment.
Project Duration: 2 Months
Scope of work:
User Research
Prototyping
Usability Test
The Directions of the Services
+
Reach In
Self -Practices tools:
Tutorials & tools to practice mindfulness.
Reach Out
Professional help:
List out the available mental consulting services that allow users to book through our platform.
Leisure Activities:
Workshops - other activities that can help mental health like handcraft workshops, outdoor activities, etc.
Background
An estimated 1 in 7 people in Hong Kong will experience a common mental disorder at any given time. Of those experiencing a mental health disorder, three-quarters will not seek professional help. Many will continue to suffer in isolation as a result of stigma, feelings of shame, lack of awareness about their condition, and a shortage of accessible professional support.
This project is based on the hypotheses
The shortage of public mental services and expensive private services are the main reasons that made patients not seek help.
Mental Treatment is a long-term & all-rounded solution, that heavily relies on the effort from both the professionals and patients.
Goals
• Make private mental services more accessible.
• Provide all rounded mental treatment solutions.
Test Hypothesis
Hypothesis
People who are looking for more options to manage their emotions.
What are the cases?
Use Case 1
People who are suffering from mental illness, but never receive treatment.
Use Case 2
People who are already under treatment but with limited options.
Use Case 3
People who are healed from mental illness and looking for training/ activities to maintain it.
How can I test it?
Find people who asked questions abt mental treatment in forums.
Demographics
• Age 20-35, working young adults
Target Audience
Habits & Preference
• Search for the solution online (Google, Forums, Social media, etc)
Experience
• They have been suffering emotional issues, either under treatment or not.
Quantity
Survey
• How big of the user base?
Attitude
• How many ppl are willing to try new treatments/ activities?
• How important is mental health for them?
Questionaires Design & recevied 14 respondees.
Interview
Phone/ In person with 3 people, 2 females and 1 Male
• What are the struggles they encounter when they search for the treatment?
Experience
• How do they search for therapists?
Behavioral Pattern
• What factors they will consider when they look for a new treatment?
Attitude
Survey Analysis
14 Respondees
71.4%
28.6%
64.3%
Had suffered from emotional issue
44.4%
Sought for professional help
The Top 3 Emotion respodees suffered the most
For respondees who received treatment before
How did you search for the consultation?
Budget per treatment
The top 3 considerations when you look for the consultation
Qualification
Experience
Price
What type of professional help did you seek?
The reason why you didn't continue the treatment?
66.7%
found the treatment was not suitable for me
33.3%
the treatment fee was too expensive
All respondees go to the consultation
Once a month
What type of professional help did you seek?
The reason why you didn't continue the treatment?
66.7%
found the treatment was not suitable for me
33.3%
the treatment fee was too expensive
All respondees go to the consultation
Once a month
For People who NEVER received treatment
Budget per treatment
All respondees estimated that
Their situations were mild & didn't see the need for professional help
The top 3 considerations when you look for the consultation
Qualification
Recommendation
from Acquaintance
Price
Insights
#1
The Qualifications and Experiences are more important to people who received treatment because they had the bad experience with therapists who didn't fully understand their situations.
“The therapist didn’t fully understand my feeling, his advice couldn’t really help me.”
“I felt lost when I was trapped in the emotional black hole, so I hope the therapist is professional enough to help me sort things out. ”
Ideations
Using Tags and Filters to filter specialties & experiences to help users find suitable experts.
#2
Both interviews and surveys showed that Recommendation from Acquaintances is important and also the first step for them to receive treatment.
“My first consultation was recommended by my supervisor at work, cos his son also suffering the same issue.”
Adding a Rating and Comment system to give users a rough idea of what the experience will be like.
Ideations
#3
42.9% of Respondees don't know the difference between counselor & clinical psychologist
Extra explanations & illustrations to help users to distinguish them.
Ideations
Pain Points
The Therapists couldn't help me
• Therapists were not professional enough to understand patient's feeling
• The different therapist has different specialties.
Long-Term Financial Burden
• The average consultation fee range from $400-800 per hour, it would be a financial burden in the long term.
The Journey of Trial & Error is frustrating
• The patient may not see the quick result in the first consultation.
• Consultation requires long-term input of effort that frustrated the patient at the beginning.
Motivations
Reliability
• The list of experts is qualified & licensed.
• Guaranteed background check before listing out the expert's portfolio.
Transparent
• Users can take references from other users' comments & ratings.
• The qualifications & experiences can be seen easily & clearly.
• Price is transparent and there is no hidden service charge.
Price
• Affordable Price for a long-term consultation.
• Subscription offers 10% off discount price.
Validating Hypothesis
Concluding the result from the interview and Survey:
Most Use Case
People who received treatment before, are willing to look for more options to see if there are any treatments affordable & suitable for them.
Less Use Case 2
People who never received treatment, are less motivated to search for consultation, cos they have the stereotype that's for a serious condition and they often perceived their situation as mild.
Opportunity
There is a cost to raising awareness of how the importance of mental health, instead of recommending consultation, we can develop workshops or leisure-based activities to form the habit of taking care of the emotion
Persona
June
27 | Hong Kong | Communication executive
Motivations
Guides to better manage work and emotions
Sharing difficulties
Activities that can distract her from work
ABOUT JUNE
June is a communication executive in the marketing department, her job is a gate between clients and designers, she is suffering lots of stress from work.
She would ask questions online about how to deal with troubled clients, she tried to look for treatment but she didn't know where to start, her friends recommended her to a therapist once, but it was very expensive and she didn't see the result in the first consultation, so she didn’t continue the treatment.
GOALS
• Better emotional management
• Work-Life Balance
PAIN POINTS
• Can't afford expensive treatment for long term
• Feeling lost in finding suitable mental treatment & tips
• Looking for activities to distract her from work
NEEDS
• Affordable mental treatment
• Comparable list of mental services
• Clear & easy guides to follow
ACTIVITIES
• Searching the available therapist online and checking out their websites
• Browsing Forums & posts for reviews and other users' experiences
• Asking friends around for recommended therapists
User Journey
The Journey of looking for therapist
Phases
Searching
Comparing
Making decision
Searching
"Therapist” online
Go to the therapist's
background
check out the price
Sharing difficulties with friends & asking for
second opinions
Actions
Get the phone contact & book
Click open the top
5 result
check out the service content
Verifying, further search for the price & review
from other sources
Got a recommendation & positively review from a friend
Emotions
Expecting
Curious
( don't know what treatment it’s suitable)
(Price is not cheap or unavailable on the website)
(There were both bad & good reviews or not much information available online )
(Hard to share my feeling)
Relieved
(Finally Take courage to take a first step)
Confused
Shocked
Confused & doubting
Embarrassed
Assured
Pain Points
• Information overwhelming
• Time consuming
Don’t know if the therapist is licensed & what qualification s/he has
Have no knowledge of what treatment is suitable
for me
• Don’t know what is the reasonable price range in the market
• Cost information is not available & accurate
• Have to dig out different forums & websites to get the reviews
• Some therapists are unsearchable
• Sharing the emotional issue is a very personal & private thing
• Having the worry that friends won't understand my situation & also spill it out
•Hard to find an acquaintance who has the contact
• Limited options, only a few sources from a few friends & only one angle of reviews
Have to mark down the contact and make an appointment by phone call.
MVP
Must - have
initiatives
Basic questions of the user
Access of user location and distance showing
Can filter search results
Qualification
Descrptions & Treatment type tags
Viewing, Rating & comment section
Price differences before and after subscription
Calendar showing the available time slot
Booking and payment
Add to the user calendar and reminder
Booking/ payment History
Should - have
initiatives
Share to Friends
Workshops
booking
Mindfulness
practice tutorials
& tools
Progress Bar
Could - have
initiatives
Space for recording the daily feeling
Wish List
Could - have
initiatives
Blog
Mood Board
Wire Frame
Home Page
Result
Profile - About Me
Profile - Services
Profile - Comment
Booking
Introducing the Prototype
Entrance Questions
Before starting the journey, We’ll ask user some entrance questions for better navigation.
Using illustrations to enlighten the journey and help users to understand the difference between counsellor and clinical psychologist.
Easy & Simple Searching
Users can search by Struggles, Specialty & Name through the searching bar.
If the users found their favorite therapist, they can simply tap this option for the booked/ marked therapist for multiple bookings.
Using simple icon to distinguish between counsellor and clinical psychologist.
Listing popular experts allow the user to discover more options.
Results can be filtered by Type, Price, Distance, Popularity, & Experience
Highlighting discounted prices for subscribed users
With the top 3 area tags, the User can easily spot a suitable therapist.
Expert's Profile
3 layers of information architecture.
About Me
Showing information about the therapist, the top 3 treatment areas, experience, basic description, and qualification.
Service
Treatment base information like service content, service communities, etc.
Comment
Showing rating and user review.
Booking
Available Time and date
Step 1
Choosing time slot
Step 3
Step 2
Choosing date
Filling contact detail for fist time user
One Click to Dual Calendars
It supports adding to the Google calendar and the in-app schedule, double reminders you won't miss the appointment anymore.
Your next appointment will appear on both homepage and the schedule page, when clicking on the schedule page, the booking detail like date, time slot, contacts, expert detail, etc will be shown.
Sure, if you change your mind to cancel the booking or just postpone your booking due to a busy schedule, there are also entrances to fulfill your need.
<Click Here to see the prototype on Figma
Usability Test
# Mission Testing - The user had to finish the missions below and we observe was the operation smooth.
# Rating Table - We asked our users for feedbacks and rate the app in diiferent aspects.
Learning
Target the Heart of the Problem
The first idea of the business model may be overwhelming and there seem to be tons of functions I wanted to be included at the beginning.
And it's easy to be distracted by unimportant tasks that can deviate me from the original goal. So in order to have a clear mind during the whole project, it's better to give the definition of the core problem and stick with the priority.
Collecting User Data is like Gold Mining
Collecting user data can be challenging, especially for a one-man band, from filtering the target audience to choosing suitable research tools for data analysis is a time-consuming process, but it’s still worth it! Because the more research I’ve done the easiest to find a suitable solution and the reasons to support my design.
Good Thing is always simple
There are lots of solutions for one problem, I found that good design is always direct and intuitive. Users have limited patience and time, so always stick with the “less is more” principle.
There are always criticisms
I believe it’s a pain in the ass for every designer, Always have the mental preparation that even the most sexiest and gorgeous girl in the world there was still haters, so do the design, and regard it as the next iterative goal.