Breathe: Responsive design for a mental health matching service

Mental Health in the Modern World
A free interactive supportive community that matches providers and apps with people seeking mental health services.

Role
Product Designer | Collaborative Lead

Problem Scope
People have different mental health needs, and current events have caused stress and disrupted lives. As a result, people are seeking out mental health services. They are faced with a large amount of different services, features, and treatment options, making finding the right fit challenging.

How might we help people find the service that matches their needs best?

Outcome
We found that mental health is not openly discussed the same way that we would talk about physical health. So access is not as simple. We originally focused on Covid-19 and how this resulted in a perceived hyper awareness of the need for mental health services. We later included other current events like racial inequality and the divided political climate.

We assumed that there were barriers: people not wanting to be labeled crazy, that therapy is a luxury and that talking about your intimate feelings can feel intimidating.

We wanted to figure out how to break these barriers so that access is more inclusive and easier to approach.