WAXED was created to empower mental health healing through the power of human connection, all from an anonymous front.
Several years before a raging pandemic and social isolation took us all by a whirlwind and highlighted the omnipresent importance of human connection, I dreamt of creating an anonymous texting app to help humans relieve their anxiety. 2020 became the point of actual beginning for WAXED when I began ideating further, researching, doing user testing, and designing the app. WAXED focuses on the foundation element that human connection is essential to mental health, and healing and growth can be vastly kickstarted and accelerated by a strong support system along with personal dedication.
The goal of this project was to conduct competitive research, gain user insights and feedback about the concept and design while focusing on user experience, and work through potential problems and solutions. These initial steps towards building out the app would help determine proof of concept.
Problem
Many people lack a support system, especially to discuss things they’re going through that are hard or impact their mental health. Sometimes opening up to family or friends isn’t the best option, and therapy is expensive and hard to access.
Solution
WAXED is an anonymous 24/7 support app founded on the concept of empathic listening and being free for all. Chat services are provided by a trained volunteer counselor and the app also will contain a library of resources.
How Might We?
The following questions drove the initial concept and proved important through user research, therefore helping to guide WAXED’s direction.
1.
Show the importance of human connection and expression to mental health?
2.
Provide immediate and long-term relief for those experiencing mental illnesses and addiction?
3.
Provide a sense of community to decrease isolation?
4.
Educate about mental health and break the stigma of mental illness?
Personas
The personas as followed highlight three types of users we think will highly benefit from using WAXED. Many more could have been created.
WAXED is intended to serve anyone who is in need of support and/or who wants to further their growth and education of mental health.
WAXED will ideally be free and available to all. We'd like to highly target low-income and unhoused individuals with access to a phone.
WAXED will be a safe space for all individuals, including supporting the LBGTQIA+ community. Members of this community are often isolated because of family stigmas.
User Flows
Initial user flows focused on the following primary user flows: home throughout the chat experience and home throughout the early-stage forum experience. Placeholders were left for content and tailored content. Standard sections such as settings, user profiles, contact, and help were not included to keep the outline of the primary user flows easy-to-understand.
Early Wireframes
Creating initial wireframes is where the real fun started! Flowing user flows and initial sketches, I created wireframes for sign-in/sign-up, user verification, onboarding, modal notifications, home screen, chat home screen, and a sample conversation, and what the basic forum section would look like along with its home screen. I used purple as a placeholder to help the designs pop more and allow me to think through call-to-actions and important elements.
Visual and Brand Style Guidelines
Every brand needs a robust visual and brand style guide. In developing out these elements, I thought through various use cases including usage in the app, advertising, online, print, and other specialties such as events. Each element of the visual and brand style guide needed to compliment WAXED’s mission statement and provide a safe, inviting environment. Key words used to reflect WAXED are bright, safe, empowering, authentic, and empathic.
Testing Brand Colors
Now it was time to apply the brand colors to the wireframes and refine screens. I chose to use the teal as the primary color of action, red for any errors/more negative focus action items, and gray for the text. The deep purple was also used occasionally for headline text and with the WAXED logo on the sign-in/sign-up screen. Buttons were designed to reflect a soft, inviting, and modern visual tone. The iconography was set in order to compliment the button style and color palette. Each icon is a simple, gray or colored, illustration that is widely recognizable. Icons are most typically used in the bottom bar navigation with a white background, modal pop-ups against a soft gray background, and in chat as a section beginning indicator.
User Testing
The biggest takeaway from user testing was that the app concept and design are great and would likely be well-received as it’s needed, but that there are significant challenges and concerns around the forum section. These challenges could make launch tricky and overwhelming. From this takeaway, I began to consider scaling back the concept to focus on the chat and resources elements.
MY ROLE
My role includes the entire development from ideation to prototype. Starting with the ideation of the original concept, I also did fundamental market and competitive research, interviewed potential users and conducted various usability tests, sketched ideas, and designed user flows, wireframes, and prototypes. Key hats worn include Visual Designer, UX Researcher, Product Designer, Information Architect, and Brand/Product Strategist.