Fight To Live | A Website To Help Reduce Teen Suicide
Description
Everyone has heard the word suicide. Usually, when we hear that word, we get this uneasy feeling. It feels unnatural, not right, and out of place. Teen suicide and suicide, in general, is exactly that. Unfortunately it is one of the leading causes of death in the United States. Below is the process my team and I used as we created a website to help decrease teen suicide, and suicide as a whole.
My Role
I was a part of a team that consisted of 3 UX Designers. We had to create a website in 4 weeks that would tackle the teen suicide issue.
The Challenge
Creating a website for teens that’ll help normalize mental illness. We had 4 weeks to get this accomplished.
As a team, we needed to have a better understanding of teens and how the website would benefit them. We decided to move forward to gather information and conduct interviews. We had to move fast. Four weeks isn’t enough time to get all the information we need to perfect the site and tackle this huge task.
Interview Preparation
We knew we had to reach out to people for our interviews. First, we had to get our questions and assumptions out of the way. So we started asking ourselves multiple questions about suicide. A few of our questions were:
- Is there a stigma about suicide?
- Why, are teens thinking of suicide instead of finding help?
- How can we show the teen’s help is out there?
- What can be done to slow down teen suicide?
After figuring out our questions we interviewed parents first. These parents have dealt with teens who were suicidal. It was a great way to see how they dealt with the issue from their point of view.
We interviewed professionals who have worked with suicidal teens. The professionals we interviewed were therapists, school psychologists, and a doctor. We received great information, which gave us great insight. For example when we interviewed Dr. Reedy. He said,
“shame is one of the reasons teens are killing themselves. Because they feel like they cannot reach out for help due to the way mental illness is percieved. If there was no shame, everyone dealing with mental illness would ask for help. The walls that we build within ourselves are built to protect us from being judged, threatened, & rejected. These walls are there to keep us alone.”
We recieved great information during these interviews. It showed us how to approach suicidal teens and that teens become suicidal due to many reasons.
Finally, we needed to interview teens. We thought about interviewing teens that were in high school. But, we would’ve needed their parent’s consent to conduct an interview and get information from them. So, instead, we went to a nearby University and interviewed students. Luckily, the students we interviewed were fresh out of high school.
An interview that I had was with Jolley, she is 19 years old. During our interview Jolley said something that stuck with me. It kept replaying in my head, and it’s something I want accomplish on the site. Jolley said,
“Problems don’t see age. Everyone has issues, but it’s up to us on how we deal with the issue, because that determines the outcome. Everyone is in need of help, but it takes the courage of one person to step up and ask if we need help.”
The information we recieved from the interviews were great. It helped us form the following goals:
- Teens want to be like other kids in school.
- They want to have control over their futures.
- They are looking for ways that’ll help them stop the pain of depression. (Or whatever mental illness they’re dealing with.)
Once, we had this information we were able to create our persona.
The Persona
We created our persona, her name is Jade Williams. She is a popular middle school student, that feels immense pressure from her parents to succeed in school.
We knew teens begin having suicidal thought due to many issues. These thoughts can occur in kids as young as 8 years old. Suicidal thoughts can occur due to stress, pleasing parents, anxiety, puberty, etc. But, when these thoughts manifested themselves, the kids and teens didn’t know where to look for help. They also felt that asking for help wasn’t a normal thing to do. Due to the weird stigmas surrounding teen suicide, teens felt meeting a therapist or seeing the school psychologist was out of the ordinary. The main focus of the project was thinking of a way we could normalize mental illness as if it were a common cold.
The most important thing is to normalize mental illness. That way we can show kids, & teens they’re not the only ones dealing with these thoughts. If we’re able to accomplish this, kids and teens will be more willing to reach out and find help sooner. They’ll see that it’s fine to ask for help and that it’s the right thing to do. Rather than thinking there’s nothing they can do and suicide is the only way.
Ideate
Once we saw that mental illness and asking for help were the biggest stigmas in teen suicide, we started to ideate on how teen suicide could decrease, and how to help normalize mental illness.
One of my early ideas was creating an A.I (Artificial Intelligence) that would greet the teens when they visited the site. The A.I would direct visitors to what they needed. Another was having the A.I reach out to the teen like a chatbot. If the teen chose to respond to the chatbot, it would respond with generic answers and responses. However, it was immediately shut down because it was something that would ultimately deter the teens away from using the product and receiving help.But, this was immediately shut down. Because it was one of those things that turned teens away from chat lines.
While our brains were still flowing with ideas, we agreed that we wanted the website to look like any other website. So that teens could visit the site and use it on a daily basis. The website would show information that normalizes mental illness, so that the teens could see they aren’t alone. In this case, we needed to include information about celebrities. That way the site could relate to teens and grab their attention. I started researching for stories of celebrities who could relate to this age group, potentially those who have dealt with mental illness and overcame it.
User Story Map
We had a lot of ideas that we would’ve liked to include in this site. For example we were talking about having a sign-up page for the users, so that we could have the users info in case they needed immediate help. Another was to have a separate website or pages for parents. However, parents were not our main persona or our audience, & a sign-up page would turn teens away because of the process it takes to sign-up & sign-in. But with a project this big, and with so little time some ideas had to be left out. Finally, we found our MVP in the User Story and that helped us create a Site Map.
Based on the User Story and Site Map. We got an idea of how we wanted the website to flow. But that changed because our team got separated. This happened so that we could create our own version of the website alone.
Wireframes
During this process, my main focus was making the website easy to use. At the same time, I wanted the site to speak to teens with suicidal thoughts. I also wanted to add some information on the site for the family members who love these teens the most. That way it would be easier for the family when they’re researching for help.
Shown here is a part of my “rough draft” for the site. I noticed that I focused more on the A.I Bot when creating my wireframes. I even gave her a name. Yes, the bot was a girl and her name was A.I.T.I.A.
A.I.T.I.A’s name stood for Artifical Intelligence Taking Immediate Action. For example, A.I.T.I.A could do everything the users needed. She could direct the users to information. She could connect them with medical help. She could find locations and provide them with general information. In my mind A.I.T.I.A was a combination of JARVIS from Iron Man and Samantha from the movie HER. It wasn’t until user testing and feedback from my peers, I realized that having a bot doing everything was a bad idea. 1. We weren’t making a movie that had an enormous budget, and 2. It would lead to bad User Experience.
I scrapped that idea and started fresh. Which, is something I would do different now thinking back. I put everything into a complicated layout, which depended only on Artificial Intelligence. Instead of trying to make it work, I realized I needed to come up with some new ideas for a new layout.
Prototyping
Once I understood the direction I wanted to take the site. I began my Hi-Fi’s and Prototyping. I chose to use fewer colors and more white space. I included the most important information on the homepage. Hoping that it captures the user’s attention. So that they can find help, see that they aren’t alone, and see that they too, have to fight to live.
Conclusion
The Fight To Live website’s main goal is to show teens that they are not alone. That they can find help, and that suicide should not be an option. With this website, my persona Jade would be able to find help. She could get information on how to cope, and see that she is not the only one dealing with these thoughts. Jade and her family would be able to connect with a therapist and the school psychologist. Her parents would be able to find resources and read about what signs they should look out for. So, that they can take the necessary steps in getting Jade help. The important thing is that the site would be available to Jade at any time. She would be able to access it without the site screaming “Suicide.” The website will also help the normalization of mental illness so that the stigma around it is gone.
Now that this project is in the books, I would say that I’ve learned a lot. It was tough at times working in a team, where many people are voicing their opinions. But, it was interesting working alone. The reason I say that is because I couldn’t help but wonder how far along my former group mates were. Teen suicide is such an enormous project. My main goal was to help remove the stigma that surrounds mental illness and find teens help. It was a great learning experience, but the things I would do different is voicing my opinion more in the group. Asking more questions during the interviews, and creating many layouts for the site. Teen suicide is an eye-opener. I learned so much about the subject, and moving forward I will do the best I can to improve my work. I am satisfied with the information I received and the way my project turned out.
