explor | make-a-thon
overview
Mental Health Make-a-thon
Many campus and online resources for mental healthcare for students are not being well utilized because many students do not know where to start. Mental health is also often associated with stigmas that drive away students from seeking help. During this 2-day make-a-thon, my team and I created Explor, a digital platform that blended the concepts of Yelp and Pokémon Go to encourage students to discover and travel the local college area as a coping mechanism for better mental health.
With Explor, we won the Best Solution award, and were featured in our school newspaper Cornell Daily Sun.
Note: This project is ongoing, and the work in progress will be updated soon!
role
Product Manager, UX Researcher, UX Specialist, Designer, and Marketing Specialist
Worked with 2 other team members.
timeline
February 2019 - Present
Design Challenge
“Create an idea or design a technology to help solve a problem within the mental health space. ” - Mental Health Make-a-thon
Empathize
During the make-a-thon, several organizations on campus that provide mental health support shared the plethora of resources they offer, taught us tips for better mental health, and outlined some key problems they have in providing better support. These organizations included The Sophie Fund, Mental Health Association of Tompkins County, Let’s CU Sleep, Thrive, Cornell Minds Matter, Mental Health Task Force Recommendations, Cornell Reflect, and Basis (a startup that provides convenient, affordable support via video or phone session).
These presentations helped our team better understand the mental health problem space and empathize with the people affected by it. For example, in a survey published by Cornell PULSE (Perceptions of Undergraduate Life and Student Experiences) in 2017: nearly 43 percent of students surveyed were “unable to function academically for at least a week due to depression, stress or anxiety” within the past year.
Define
Brainstorming
As we jotted down all the key problems the organizations mentioned in their presentations, the people noted in their interviews, and our personal experiences with getting better mental health support, we narrowed down our problem space to
Identified Problems
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Many campus and online resources for mental healthcare for students are not being well utilized, because many students do not know where to start.
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Mental health is also often associated with stigmas that drive away students from seeking help.
Specified Target Market
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Cornell Students (and Ithaca College Students)
Established Objectives:
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To connect students to available campus resources
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To promote healthy mental health in a non-explicit manner
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To increase community engagement between the students and the Ithaca community
Ideate
Brainstorming
After we defined our problems and goals for our product, we brainstormed different ideas to tackle our problem space while meeting our goals. After sharing and discussing various potential solutions, we agreed on creating a mobile application that connects users to local events on and off-campus, a game that motivates users to explore the greater Ithaca area, and additional information / tips for each event or area visited to increase user’s mental health. We also outlined specific features we wanted to include in our prototype:
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Tags / Filters to sift for each event / activity
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An interactive map of Ithaca
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User profiles
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User ratings for events / locations
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User personalization through ability to ‘favorite’ selected events / locations
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Ability for users to create a ‘course’ to follow
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Suggestions for events (upcoming / seasonal / popular / etc.) and locations (popular / close in proximity)
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Further information / tips to further enjoy event / activity and boost mental health
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‘Pokemon Go’ like game that provides locations users can visit to get treasures and points
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Tasks (that boost mental health) for users to complete to get treasures and points
Prototype
Based on the solutions that arose when ideating, we identified six features we wanted to focus on to depict in our prototype:
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Tags / Filters to sift for each event / activity
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An interactive map of Ithaca
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User ratings for events / locations
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User personalization through ability to ‘favorite’ selected events / locations
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Suggestions for events (upcoming / seasonal / popular / etc.) and locations (popular / close in proximity / etc.)
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‘Pokemon Go’ like game that provides locations users can visit to get treasures
Low-Fidelity
After several iterations and feedback, we decided on this layout of the features for easiest accessibility, readability and usability.
Hi-Fidelity
Homepage
MAP: Click on a section to display stress-free activities and restaurants that are available in that section.
EVENTS: Trending events are shown to promote appropriate stress - free activities.
Events & Activities
A detailed list of events and activiites available in the local Ithaca area are shown, along with filters that help organize the type of activities available.
Game
MAP: Drop pins show areas to explore.
GAME: Points and treasures can be redeemed when users ‘check-in’ in these areas.
When drafting the hi-fidelity designs through Sketch and InVision, we incorporated options to favorite selected activities, and show ratings provided by other users of the app.
The app presents a map broken down into sub-sections (i.e., West Campus, Central Campus--then more specifically Arts Quad, Ag Quad, Eng Quad...etc) of the different parts of the Cornell campus. Each section will present nature landmarks, campus events (i.e., speaking events, concerts, salsa nights,...overall “stress free” events).
Next Steps
We are still working to make the application operational. This not only includes the front and back end of the app, but working with other organizations and local businesses to create incentives for users to use and continue using the app for its many benefits. With such partnerships, users can indicate their presence by checking via Explor, gaining points and treasures that can later be traded with prizes.
After this mobile application is operational, we hope to make this an available resource to people outside of the Cornell student population, as we recognize mental health is not only relevant to Cornell. We want our product to be adaptable to different universities, reaching a greater scope of users.
Perhaps in the far future, we can create a separate Explor Business app to help local businesses and organizations to join and advertise their various events and activities that are beneficial for better mental health.