Being a Pillar for a Loved One in Need — Tackling Youth Depression
How do we prepare someone to interact with a loved one who is going through depression?
I’m sure anyone reading this has at least one person in their life who has struggled with mental illness. Whether that be depression, anxiety, an eating disorder or any other, these issues take a toll not only the afflicted but also on their loved ones.
At trying times it can be difficult to open up about one’s darkest thoughts, they can be hard to describe and even harder to find help for.
Hack Mental Health is one of the largest hack events in the world to focus on mental health. This year it was hosted at UCSF with over 600+ attendees and over 60 submitted projects. Hack Mental Health covered a broad spectrum of mental issues, from practicing meditation to living with psychogenic pruritus, a form of chronic anxiety that causes one to constantly scratch themselves.
This past weekend, I was lucky enough to team up with a talented group of individuals I had never met before to brainstorm and prototype a possible solution to tackle depression in adolescent teens and college students.
Our Team of Six
- UX/UI Designer (myself)
- Product Designer (Belinda Huang)
- Dental Students (Rebecca Lerman & Karisa Yamamoto)*who were also working on a research project for depression in Dental students
- MD/PhD Student (Abrar Choudhury)
- Web Developer (Huan Ji)
Besides Karisa and Rebecca, who are classmates, the six of us all came together by happenstance. During our team formation, the six of us shared stories about how we came to the event and what interests we had in mental health.
As we shared stories, a common experience began to reveal itself. All of us had a close friend or a romantic partner deal with a serious mental health issue. A common issue we all dealt with was wanting to communicate with our loved ones but not knowing how to do so or what to say. Because of this common theme we took the unique approach of helping the friend of the person in distress. We also decided to narrow our scope towards the ailment of depression.
The question then became — How do we prepare someone to interact with a loved one who is going through depression?
Through multiple discussions and solo ideation sessions, we were able to come up with some sketches of an idea. After getting the user journey nailed down we showed digital mocks to some of the surrounding groups who were also busy hacking away. Many of their suggestions, such as grouping most of our help documentation into one section, sharpened the core experience of our app.
Core features of the app
Knowledge and Resources
A Wikipedia of sorts to learn more about mental health issues: its history, effects, and treatments. In addition, it included a library of links to hotlines, therapists and places to find certified help.
Communications Guides
Research backed Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques to use in conversation with someone going through depression. The communication guides and techniques listed within them are not meant to train a layperson to become a therapist but rather to use proven methods to guide discussions in more productive directions.
My People
Where a user is able to track the history of their friend’s issue through journaling. These notes are a way for a friend to decompress after tough conversations and be able to share them with other supporting parties. In this section we also built out a reminder feature which would text an individual on a given date to check up on their friends, hopefully promoting consistent feedback and support for those in need.
We had our final designs done by around 10PM Saturday when we handed them over to our single developer, Huan. Huan voraciously coded all night with zero sleep in order to get us a working prototype to show Sunday. By deadline we had half the app done in code, and the other half presentable as a clickable prototype, as well as a couple of slides to add to our presentation. Continually tweaking till the last second, we rehearsed our story and refined our visuals. You could feel the frenetic energy in the entire hall as groups crammed to put the final touches on their projects.
A Winner!
After all was said and done we were fairly happy with our product. Our team came up with a cohesive solution to a very specific problem sector. In fact, we were one of two teams selected from the 33 submissions to win the HopeLab Sponsor Challenge, which was geared towards “hacking a solution to address social isolation in young people.”
Next Steps
To further develop this product we would probably have to go back and do a bit more user research. We need to interview and survey more teens and college kids going through a mental illness. Although we came up with some resources we haven’t refined their effectiveness.
We would also like to develop our content to be more interactive and impactful. Perhaps adding video or audio to our communication guides would be a more effective learning tool. We also thought about adding a social component to the app where multiple people could coordinate their efforts on a singular loved one.
Summary
Hack Mental Health was a great way to challenge ourselves, work as a team, and build something that might actually one day help many of our friends and family. I’d like to thank Stephen Cognetta and the amazing team of volunteers for organizing the event. Truly a first-class hackathon in terms of resources, venue, and organization. There was a great mix of speakers, access to resources in the mental health space, as well as interesting activities involving mental fitness and well being.
I’d also like to thank every one of our amazing team members for the effort they displayed this weekend. The support our team gave to each other throughout the weekend was single most important factor to our success. Whether it was not being overly territorial over tasks or an idea, to bringing our one coder a taco during breakfast while he debugged, it was truly was a unified effort.
One more special thanks to Dr. Rebecca Klein, a resident in adult psychiatry at New York Presbyterian/Columbia. Rebecca gave us almost an hour of her time over the span of the hackathon offering her knowledge and experience as a psychiatrist. Her insights and understanding of the field were critical in guiding us away from possibly unoriginal solutions as well as sharpening the one we eventually built.
What I love about hackathons is the adrenaline rush of being creative with a diverse group of individuals. What makes for a great hackathon is passionate and talented people working in coordinated and cooperative efforts. If this project continues, I’ll be sure to add to this post in the future.
Thanks for reading! I hope this piece encourages all readers to go out, meet strangers, and build something positive for the world!
