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ListeningPal
A peer-to-peer mental health service.
Overview
Role
Timeline
Summary
UX/UI Designer
20 weeks
Jan - May 2022
Team
Under the guidance of our sponsor, Tian Westland, we were tasked with building a system of apps to bring ListeningPal to life. Tian found a market opportunity to bring affordable, anonymous, reliable peer-support to people of the PNW who could use a listening ear, so we created a way to connect users with trained peer-support “Pals” via appointment scheduling and thirty-minute calls.
Madison Johnstone, PM/Data Scientist
Connor Voelk, Frontend/Backend/Cloud Engineer
Raiham Malik, Frontend/Backend Engineer
Context
ListeningPal was created due to the following reasons:
Supply and demand issues for therapy
Inconsistency regarding
bookings
Inaccessibility (time, money, location)
Stigma surrounding mental health
Problem Statement
How might potential ListeningPal users have a comfortable and seamless experience accessing peer support so they can derive maximum value from the ListeningPal app and are satisfied with the support they receive?
Research Insights
Users strongly desire anonymity to feel safe in sharing their feelings
Users value security because sensitive information is being handled
Users want an app that is simple, calming, and easy to use
User Personas
Rachel
College Student
Needs someone to discuss the stressors being a student in a new environment
Wants a healthy outlet for her stressors, as well as someone she can trust to provide support
James
EMT
Needs someone to talk about the trauma and stress that comes with his job
Wants a viable way to discuss his experiences without burdening his friends and family
Early Ideation and Wireframes
We initially gained inspiration from other designs that emitted simplicity and friendliness.
I then drew some low-fidelity wireframes for the main features of our app to present to the team.
Prototype
After gaining feedback from my team and peers, as well as conducting user testing with potential users and "Pals", I created a high-fidelity prototype so the engineers could begin developing!
Schedule Appointments
Users buy credits to redeem for appointments with our trained "pals". They can select a date and choose from a dropdown menu of all the available times for that day
View Appointments and Resources
Users can view all of the appointments they book using their credits on the main home screen. Additionally, national mental health resources are available to users.
Join Call with a Pal
Users can join scheduled calls from the home screen. Before the call begins, users must agree to our terms of service to avoid using our service in an immediate crisis situation.
Final Product
Thanks to the skills and determination of our team, we were able to bring ListeningPal to life! By the end of May, we handed over two apps (the user and Pal interfaces) to our sponsor to add features that were out of scope for our team and begin beta testing.
Take a look at our product in action and check out ListeningPal!
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