Why your opinion matters to us — Interview guide
By bringing your story, you are contributing to the solution
What is Thought Path?
The NIMH estimates that 1 in 5 adults (43 million Americans) suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder. In response, we’ve created a project called Thought Path. Over the next six months, a team of seven students and I will work on building a solution to mental health (read the full story)
We need your help
We want to get this right, so we’re talking to our community about their experience with mental health. The better we understand your story, the better we can address the problem. We understand that this is a personal topic, so we’ve created this blog post to explain the interview process.
TL;DR — The anonymous interview takes 15 minutes to complete. We don’t ask questions about specific diagnosis. Also, we’d like to speak to everyone, regardless of your mental health history. Yes, even if you’re undiagnosed. Sign up for an interview here.
Why we want to chat with you?
The goal of these interviews is to understand how to address the problem. In other terms, we’d like to hear your thoughts on how you perceive mental health.
The interview questions revolves around two themes:
- The types of patterns you’ve experienced in your mental health
- How you keep track of your mental health
We will not ask about:
- Specific diagnosis
- Descriptive stories
Below are two sample questions from the interview:
Your privacy is our top concern
We understand that this is a personal topic, so we’re doing everything we can to ensure your anonymity. Our interviewers will never ask for your name. Unfortunately, the scheduling software that we use requires us to request a name field. Feel free to use a fun alias. We’ve gotten Fogell and McLovin’ in the past. Just be creative.
How to sign up for an interview?
These interviews are created for maximum flexibility. First, sign up for a time slot that fits with your schedule here. We’ll ask a few basic questions like your name (use an alias), email address, and phone number. Once you’ve pressed confirm, the meeting will automatically sync with your google calendar.
One of our researchers will give you a call at the time you specified. If you’d like to speak with a specific interviewer, please specify in the last box.
In addition, there is a written section you can fill out if there are triggering and/or sensitive topics you would like to avoid. You can also use this section to suggest concepts that you would like to cover more in-depth in the interview. You run the show!
Remember, you can always end the interview early
If at any point during the interview, you want to stop, you can interject the conversation or simply hang up the phone. Your data will not be taken into account, and nothing will be held against you.
In conclusion
Your time will make a huge difference, as our goal is to make a something based on your needs and your perspective. However, the only way we can make this is if we have enough foundational research and data to create something that is viable, sustainable, and useful to you.
So please consider signing up for an interview, and help us create a household tool that helps people understand their mental health.
With love,
Asher
