Mental Health Web Application Project

Mental Health Web Application Project

Wildfire season at the AdaProject

Late last year, I was added to a team of ladies in different tracks (product management, frontend, backend, product design, mobile development, and data analysis) to work on a project, and the final result should be a ready-to-use product. The project was called "Wildfire season" and it is part of the TechAda program that I started in September. We were given ten days (10) to come up with a product (either a web application or website) that can be used by real users.

This was the most challenging project I've ever done before, and even though in a real-life situation, it wasn't feasible to come up with a fully fleshed product in that short amount of time, that was what we were tasked with completing. I had panic attacks on several occasions thinking of how it was going to end, but the most important getaway for me from this wildfire season was that "I should never give up, and anything is possible".

As a group of five to twelve ladies (by the beginning of this year though, we became nine because some left to other groups or were no longer interested in the project) we created a group on Slack (this was later moved to a Whatsapp group) for easy communication and the work began.

Firstly, we had a brainstorming session where we decided which of the SDG goals we'd be working on. We chose to work on healthtech, but we had to streamline it to a particular area in healthtech. Everyone came up with different ideas as to which part we'd work on, but we all decided to work on mental health.

MentHealth

The name of the web application is "MentHealth". Its purpose is to help users with mental health cases like depression, anxiety, and work or family-related stress. It's online based and users can get in touch with a mental health doctor.

Users have access to voice calls or video chat with a doctor. You get an appointment with the recommended health personnel and you would get a reminder when it's almost time via email or SMS. Users have to sign up and pay an affordable fee to get access to the service.

Features

Features

The features include:

  • Voice call

  • Video chat

  • Calendar/reminder

  • Email/SMS notification

  • Payment platform

My contribution

As a product designer, I was able to contribute the following to the project.

  • Product Requirement Document (PRD)

  • Landing page for the web application

  • Style guide for product uniformity

  • High fidelity (Hi-fi) for the web application

  • Wireframe for the mobile application

  • Sketched the user journey map

Details of my contribution

I designed the landing page for the product. I made use of a mental health template on the Figma community, which made it easier to finish up the design. I designed the homepage of the web application from the same template. I prepared the product requirement document (PRD) for the team, which was very demanding because I had to do a lot of research and read up on a lot of things I didn't understand. It was also my first time preparing a document like that, so it challenged me to be better.

I sketched the wireframe for the mobile application after a teammate had already completed the final design. I designed the high fidelity (hi-fi) for the web application as well. I used Figma web to perform all the designs. In the Figma file, each page has a frame, either a desktop frame or a phone frame (in this case, an android frame). The colors for the final designs chosen were shades of blue and white, which helped me in creating the style guide for the whole project.

Lessons Learnt

People skill is very important when working with a team because it would change your orientation on how you think and perceive others. Don't assume that things are being done, always ask to be ascertained. Collaboration can only work if everyone is willing to do that. But if it's just a few people putting in the effort, the collaboration will be stagnant. This was a major problem for my team. A lot of us were doing our own thing, and we were not talking to each other. In the end, our project was not unified, it was forced.

Another lesson is that if you're a team lead or in charge of a job or anything, it should be taken seriously because if it's not you'll only be shooting yourself in the foot and it could cause lots of tension between you and the people you're leading.

Conclusion

Unfortunately for my team, at the end of the project season, we didn't have a product to showcase. But I hope we've learned that not collaborating effectively will only jeopardize our efforts. Working with people is good, we just need to play our part and be the best at it.

If you're struggling with a mental health issue, or you know someone who is, please encourage them to go see a professional and get help today.

Your health is very important. Take good care of you.

Cheers!!!