Mental Health Mango

Design Idea:
Our design is a chatbot that allows a student struggling with mental health to opt in to meeting another student with similar issues. The text message bot provides a brief description of its use, then asks simple questions and relates to the users (with emojis and informal language), and works to schedule a meeting (date/time/place) where the two users can meet and complete an activity together (ex. an arts and crafts project). This meeting allows participants to speak openly about their mental health issues in a low-pressure environment. Afterwards, the user is able to provide feedback with the chatbot about their experience at the activity.
Justification of the problem framing:
We decided on this problem framing because we felt that it was both a very prevalent issue among our interviewees, as well as a problem that could realistically have a solution in the context of this project.
One of our other problem framings was that “a lack of time spent understanding and reflecting on one’s own mental health contributed to worsened mental health and well-being.” This was a problem that, while important to address, is unlikely to have a unique or innovative solution— we imagine that a solution to a lack of self-reflection would simply be to dedicate more time to thinking and speaking about mental health.
Another problem framing was that “an overwhelming college workload contributed to worsened mental health and well-being.” This problem was definitely common among our interviewees, but we anticipate that solving academic stress would be difficult without any control over students’ workloads and extracurricular commitments. A solution such as time management certainly has the potential to alleviate academic stressors, but may not entirely solve the link between academic stress and mental health.
Thus, we selected the problem of inadequate social support. This problem is not only critical to users’ lives (as gathered through our interview analysis), but it will also catalyze creative technology designs. The challenge of creating social support and social connection is very complicated and difficult by nature, but we think that this challenge will permit us to explore a variety of creative solutions to truly help our users. Prototype design rationale:
This automated text messaging system was designed to create a more approachable environment for users to engage with, through short texts, informal language, and emojis. The simple reply-to-schedule messaging system is efficient and offers a wide range of activity options for users. The dialogue tree covers all possible responses, but allows for freedom in the user's response, with a last resort of asking them to reword their message. The system, allowing users to create their ideal activity space. In this iteration, the user is provided with a brief description of the chat box and its use. A component was added where the user is asked for feedback about their experience using the program.