Myloh is a mobile application startup that features a psychometric chatbot that supports youths in their mental wellbeing journey. With its repository of knowledge-based programs and habit-forming tools, Myloh’s objective is to empower youths with the right skills and mindsets to live a healthy and balanced life.

Design Challenge

How might we improve the overall user experience of Myloh to make it more engaging and enticing for end users to manage and maintain a healthy overall mental wellbeing?

My Role

My main contributions was at the research and ideation phases of the UX process. I designed the gamification framework of Myloh and contributed in creating wireframes these concepts. The final UI screens were refined by my colleagues.

Collaboration

Team of 5 UX/UI Designers

Timeline

May - Aug 2021

Organisations

Myloh
Chemistry Team

Design Process

Discover

Cognitive Walkthrough
Competitive Analysis
Semi-Structured Interviews

Define

Coping Mechanism Matrix
Insight-Opportunity Statements

Ideate

Feedback Loops
Gamification
Information Architecture

Design

Design Studio
Wireframes
Final UI Screens

Research & Problem Discovery

Heuristics Evaluation to Identify Usability Issues

We began with a heuristic evaluation of the existing app to examine the usability of the application. We applied the Jakob Nielsen's 10 general principles for interaction design to identify user pain points and consolidated a list of recommendations for Myloh.

To assist the Myloh team in prioritising, we also tagged each recommendation according to the level of severity and level of difficulty in fixing.

Competitive Analysis to Collect Inspiration

We then conducted a competitive analysis of other mental health applications to assess MyLoh against its competitors. 12 apps (eg. Headspace, Breeze) were compared across 14 variables (eg. Use of gamification, chat function).

Through this analysis, we identified opportunity areas for Myloh. For instance, Myloh currently offers limited mood assessments (’joy’ or ‘sad’) which might oversimplify users' emotions. However, its competitors offer a wide selection of moods that matches with the users’ daily activities - thus providing actionable insights for users. We then brought these insights as hypothesis to validate in our user research.

Interviews to Understand What Gaps Myloh Can Fill

In order to design features that would genuinely engage and provide value to users, we spoke to youths who struggle with mental health issues to develop empathy for their challenges. We also recruited counsellors and school teachers to leverage their experience in supporting youths.

As mental health is a complex and nuanced issue, we started with broader questions about the mental health landscape in Singapore before moving into more personal questions about how youths manage their mental health stressors.

This approach gave us a holistic view of the system in order to find the most strategic opportunity areas for Myloh.

Existing Ecosystem of Mental Health Support for Students

General Perceptions & Attitudes Towards Mental Health

Personal Experiences Coping with Mental Health Issues

Research Synthesis

To make sense of the rich stories we have heard, here are some of the frameworks we used to organise our synthesise insights.

A map of the different archetypes of mental models, emotional needs and coping strategies of youths. This allowed us to better scope how Myloh can appeal and assist different users.
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A systemic map of youths’ mental health recovery journey and the different actors involved (teachers, parents, peers). This gives us a birds' eye view context of how Myloh can play a part throughout this journey for a sustained impact.

A flowchart charting out the decision-making factors that affect whether students seek help for their mental health. This allowed us to identify key opportunity areas for Myloh's impact.

I was encouraged by my experienced UX mentor to think out-of-the-box when creating the Coping Mechanism Matrix. Having interviewed many youths who have different preferences and experiences, I was inspired to create a visual map of how different archetypes can influence the users's coping behaviours. This would be be useful for Myloh to curate relevant content to engage its diverse users.

Key Insights & Opportunities

1. Gaps in School Support

Although there are existing school programs supporting students in their mental health, students do not like to follow regimented programs as it reminds them of the academic environment that they are in. How might we design programs and content delivery in a way that appeals and engages youths?
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2. Different Needs for Diverse Youths

There is a wide variety of stressors that trigger mental health problems and every individual copes differently. How might Myloh cater to the different needs of individuals?
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3. Social Media's Impact

Social Media such as TikTok and Instagram has become become a popular platform for mental health support amongst students. How might Myloh leverage on social media platforms to appropriately and effectively engage youths?

Defining Strategy & Ideation

With the opportunity areas prioritised, we conducted a co-creation workshop with the Myloh team to ideate. In order to encourage consistency of good habits, both teams agreed to employ behavioural design principles to motivate and engage youths through positive feedback loops.
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A Gamification Narrative That Meets Both Users' and Business' Goals

We wanted users to experience a continuous and meaningful narrative when they interact with the app in order to sustain their engagement. Thus, we brainstormed 3 different narratives.

My idea was ultimately picked as it allows for Myloh to continuously to scale its product through the continuous progression of the game world, whilst containing a coherent narrative of nurturing one's holistic wellness.

Positive Feedback Loops to Nudge Behaviour

We created a list of feedback loops that reinforces positive behaviour, each feedback loop consists of:
1. Challenge – What user needs to do
2. Feedback – Affirm users’ behaviour
3. Reward – Motivate the user to further spur action

Creating a Logical Gamification Economy

To concretise the mechanics of how the gamification works, I defined the currency of the gamification world, the rewards of each positive user interaction, as well as the different ways in which users can utilise rewards to progress further in the game world.

Designing Features

Reorganising Information Architecture

With the addition of new features and content, we needed to review the organization of Myloh’s Information Architecture. To do so, we did a card sorting exercise of both the existing structures and the new content to be added in order to create an updated information architecture.

Sketching Low-Fidelity Wireframes

Next, I began to visualise these features by drafting some low-fidelity wireframes. As Myloh contains a vast repository of knowledge and skills, the challenge here was to deliver complex content in a logical and user-friendly way.

Iterating on Mid-Fidelity Wireframes

We were inspired by apps like Instagram and TikTok, which allowed users to navigate information with intuitive 'taps' and 'swipe up' motions. As such, we explored how we might integrate these familiar UI into Myloh's programs.

Final Solutions

1. Delivering Relevant Content to the Right Users through Onboarding

In order for Myloh to tailor its content to users who face different challenges, we designed an initial onboarding assessment for the app to understand the user profile. Thereafter, the app can recommend programs according to their needs. Users can also further personalise the content afterwards to take ownership of their own mental wellbeing.

2. Gamification to Nudge Positive Behaviours

Gamification mechanics were employed such that users will be encouraged to progress in their mental health journey at their own pace and according to their own needs without the app enforcing a rigid and structured program on them.

3. Content Delivery Integrating the Familiar UI of Instagram Stories

Social Media has a huge role to play in youths’ ability to express themselves and reflect on past memories. Thus we integrated well-known features of social media apps like Instagram into the app design to create a sense of familiarity for users.

Reflections & Takeaways

Challenging Assumptions Through User Research

I was initially skeptical of how a digital application can deliver nuanced and sensitive mental health support as it lacked that ‘human touch’. However, through interviews with youths, I learned that youths find Myloh the E-buddy to be endearing and felt safe in sharing their thoughts as the E-buddy is not a figure of authority in their lives (eg. parents, counsellors).

Capturing this insight challenged my assumption that having a human behind a mental health service must be the necessary solution. Instead, I began to look at the problem from a different angle by asking myself: What is the emotion and feeling we want to bring to youths as they use Myloh? How can we make youths feel safe on this platform?
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Collaboration for the Aha! Moment

This was my first big design project in a real life context. I came in with the expectations that great ideas would hit in a genius “Aha!” moment during the ideation workshop. But what I experienced was that the solution emerged slowly through many rounds of experimentation, stakeholder communication, prioritisation, and design iterations. It is a highly collaborative team effort and I thoroughly enjoyed learning from my colleagues and mentors!

Amy