Project overview
SoundMind Project is a Philadelphia based nonprofit organization focused on creating innovative solutions to pressing healthcare needs in the areas of neuroscience and mental health. The organization was seeking a website that would allow users to donate to the active project of their choice. SoundMinds’ primary target users include adults concerned with the growing mental health crisis and would like to learn more about ways to resolve the issue.
From July 27 to August 8, 2022, around 22% of U.S. adults reported symptoms of depressive disorder in the past two weeks. The SoundMind Project seeks to help people discover and experience innovative solutions to the growing mental health crisis. In addition, they’ve created fund programs to ensure people from difference socioeconomic backgrounds can have access to the support they need.
Design a responsive website that will bring awareness to SoundMind’s initiatives to improve mental health, as well as making it easy to provide their organization with donations to support their nonprofit projects easily and efficiently.
UX designer leading the responsive website design from conception to delivery.
Conducting interviews, paper and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping, conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, iterating on designs, determining information architecture, and responsive design.
I used SoundMind’s data on intergenerational trauma to develop interview questions, which were then used to conduct user interviews. Most interview participants reported awareness of intergenerational trauma in their family history, but mentioned it was a topic the family members weren’t comfortable discussing. The discussion was more comfortable for them to have with their friends, but when it comes to psychedelics, most of their friends had only used them recreationally.
The feedback received through research made it very clear that users would be open and willing to explore alternative solutions to healing trauma and other mental health concerns through the use of psychedelics if they had access to more information, as well as the ability to afford it.
“It shows up in intense feelings that smack me in the back of the head sometimes from nowhere. and don’t understand the why or the how. but I get the where that they came from.”
Michael is a 43 year old jewish sales agent who needs to learn more about intergenerational trauma because he wants to make a well informed decision before deciding whether or not he wants to use psychedelics to attempt to heal himself.
Michael Cohen’s grandparents are holocaust survivors and he believe that their trauma has possibly been passed down to him. He believes confronting the root of the trauma could help set him free from it, and he believes psychedelics could help him do that, although he has fears around what might arise.
“Klynt is a 33 year old black engineer who needs Psychedelic assisted therapy because he wants to heal the trauma passed down from his family.”
“Psychedelics should be respected and used. Purposefully and positively for growth.”
Klynt grew up in London with an angry dad who grew up in an abusive household. The older generations in Client’s family all carried a lot of anger and resentment towards one another. but Klynt’s siblings and cousins made a conscious decision not to let the older generations’ conflicts impact their own relationship. That conscious decision enables them to have good relationships with one another. Klynt is interested in using psychedelics to heal any trauma that might be passed down from his family and the culture he grew up in.
After ideating and drafting some digital wireframes, I created the initial designs for the SoundMind Proiect mobile site. These designs focused on guiding the user to make a donation, and learn more about their main initiatives.
To prepare for usability testing, I created a low fidelity prototype that connected the user flow of learning about an initiative to the process of making a donation.
These were the main findings uncovered by the usability study:
The user interface needs to be adapted to the blind spots of specific types of cellphones.
People would like an option to create a monthly re-occuring donation.
People would prefer the ability to drag scroll in two directions instead of one.
