Year
2024
Role
UX Researcher
Category
Mental Health / app
Product Duration
Long-term
Young adults often delay seeking help for mental health due to fear, stigma, and a lack of emotional readiness. Existing mental health apps focused more on symptom tracking or therapy access, but few addressed the transitional space before users feel ready to engage with professionals.
Lead a research initiative to identify the emotional and behavioral barriers to early mental health intervention, and prototype a solution that meets users where they are emotionally, not just functionally.
Conducted semi-structured interviews with individuals in emotional distress but not seeking therapy.
Created emotion-centered journey maps to visualize the invisible friction.
Designed low-fidelity prototypes focusing on soft onboarding via community and expert columns, emphasizing emotional tone and trust-building.
Collaborated with psychology experts to validate the design and ensure ethical safety in communication patterns.
Developed a design framework for early intervention apps
Created a working prototype for a chatbot-driven onboarding experience that gently bridges emotional hesitation.
Delivered findings in a visual report format, which was later shared with mental health innovation workshops and included in usability research for my thesis.
The project received recognition from academic and startup communities for its unique intersection of empathy, system design, and practical application.
