Case study: Building a new feature for Mental Health in a COVID tracker app
Adding a feature to the existing Arogya Setu app.
Continued from: Case Study: Assessment of Psychosocial impact in times of COVID-19 — Part 1
Introduction
Arogya Setu App uses Bluetooth and GPS to track the number of cases in an area and curb the spread of the COVID infection. It also sends out notifications to people, thereby alerting them for quarantining themselves. Developed by the National Informatics Centre, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology via “public-private partnership,” the app is meant to be a digital tool to battle the pandemic.
The app currently has 100 million downloads. The application was also made mandatory for traveling across states.
In this exercise, my goal was to add a feature to the existing Arogya Setu app.
The feature was Mental health.
How the current app looks like
Aarogya Setu has four sections —
- Your Status
- Media
- COVID Updates
- e-Pass
- Available in 11 Indian languages
Upon installing the app, a user must fill in their name, number, gender, travel history, and smoking habits. They are also required to take a health survey, and if the self-assessment hints at any COVID-19 symptoms, the data is uploaded to the servers; until then, the records are stored on the phone.
The app provides self-isolation and access to telemedicine, an e-pharmacy, diagnostic services, the helpline number 1075, and a PM CARES Fund section for donations. The app also gives each user a color-coded badge showing infection risk. To make compliance easier, the app has been whitelisted by all Indian telecom companies so that its use does not exhaust a user’s mobile data limits.
Getting started — The design process.
- Research
The research was done on Mental health and coping during COVID-19 and how people reacting in these unprecedented times, in PART 1.
The survey source link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/11mkhrrjtvo40detR5t4magrr6CMbx7G_b54TCJOn_mA/edit#responses
2. Mind Mapping
In the beginning, after the research study, it was not sure about where to start. So I decided to do some brainstorming around the feature. I did some Mind mapping to generate more ideas, identify relationships among the data and information I collected from my survey study.
3. Story Boarding
After visually organizing information through Mind Mapping, I figured out a few scenarios of how the Mental Health feature will be used and have done wireframes after this storyboarding exercise.
4. Wireframes
With the help of storyboards, I had done a rough sketch of wireframes, and then I started to work on High fidelity wireframes to detail out the flows.
- Low fidelity wireframe
Experimented with different layouts of the Dashboard page.
- Mid fidelity Wireframes
After exploring rough options on paper, I have created digital wireframe with the finalized structure, layout, content, and flow.
Navigation Model:
How does smart reply works?
Emoticons to express the feelings
The Final Product
I haven't changed the app's existing UI; rather, I have used the same and created the new feature to blend in with the Arogya Setu App.
Prototype
Final thoughts
Designing a new feature on Mental health was a challenging and enjoyable experience. From my research, case studies, and surveys, it was clear that everyone needs a place to vent and talk through things or reflect on your day.
The truth is that human beings need social connectedness to prevent ill-health. We need good social relationships, interaction, human touch, affection, and love.
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