Relief
Helping people deal with anxiety and panic attacks by providing a strong distraction first, then, giving the guidelines on how to deal with the problem in the long-term.
The Problem
Mental health is becoming a central topic of discussion nowadays when the majority of the working-age people are under constant stress. Stress is caused by a lot of different factors, including work or career-related issues, change of environment, attitudes, and perceptions, and so on.
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Constant stress may lead to anxiety and also it can develop into anxiety disorders and sometimes to more severe forms such as panic attacks.
The prevalence of anxiety disorders across the world varies from 2.5 to 6.5 percent by country. Globally an estimated 275 million people experienced an anxiety disorder in 2016, making it the most prevalent mental health or neurodevelopmental disorder.
Panic attacks are intense periods of fear or feelings of doom developing over a very short time frame -- up to 10 minutes -- and associated with at least four of the following:
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Sudden overwhelming fear
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Palpitations
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Sweating
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Trembling
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Shortness of breath
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Sense of choking
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Chest pain
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Nausea
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Dizziness
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A feeling of being detached from the world (de-realization)
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Fear of dying
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Numbness or tingling in the limbs or entire body
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Chills or hot flushes
Data clearly shows that stress, anxiety, and panic attacks are a relevant problem to nowadays society and it’s only grown over the years. However, people are usually not aware of it and are trapped when they experience anxiety or a panic attack.
An additional challenge of this project was that the panic attack is a really sensitive psychological issue that involves a lot of hardly controllable emotions, such as fear, and during the time of the attack, for a person, it is even harder to control its actions and behave in a particular way.
Also, I personally used to have both anxiety and panic attacks, so during the term of the project I needed to fight my own biases and constantly remind myself that the feelings I experienced during that time may be or are completely different from others'. Everyone's experience is different and the level of intensity is always different too. Even the triggers and soothing techniques differ from person to person. So, a constant reminder that I am not designing for myself here was a must.
Users & Audience
The target users of Relief are people of any age (usually between 16 and 45), experiencing deep anxiety or panic attacks. These users have a strong preference for mobile-first, real-time communication. One of the most common treatments are therapy and/or medication but at the time of a panic attack, these cannot help to get quick relief to proceed with their lives.
A key differentiator of this user group is that they are heavy users of a smartphone and usually keeps it around them at all times.
Team & Role
I was a one-man-team on the project - designing iOS app from the ground up.
I coordinated all facets of design including information architecture, user task flows, interaction, visual, product, and prototyping. I also conducted user research using methods such as interviews, surveys, and observation in order to address both user behavior and attitudes. Testing of an app was done by an external tester.
Design process
/ research
In order to identify if this product was worth developing, as well as what is needed to accomplish, I started out by assembling potential user interviews first, because I haven't had any reliable assumptions about potential users' needs, motivations, and context.
It was extremely important to get the interview questions right since panic attacks is a sensitive topic. People must feel at ease at all times talking about their issue, and it is natural to expect that some questions may be left unanswered.
That's why the contact with the participants was one of the most challenging parts of the design process for Relief App.
After performing 6 interviews, I transcribed them, coded and looked for common themes. This process allowed me to create a user's persona which served as a North Star during the whole design process.
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After hearing all the feature requests, I was able to identify their key pain points:
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Potential users wanted to stop the intense fear they are experiencing at that particular moment - to ‘exit’ the anxiety/panic mode - then, to get some more information on how to achieve better results in coping with anxiety and panic attacks in the long run.
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Although I knew that the app could grow to be something much larger, I focused on creating an MVP that met the users' core need.
Design process
I identified the key specs that had to be included in the app in order to build the MVP.
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The priority was set for the focus (distraction) exercise, which is based on a psychological technique called 'grounding.' However, by doing early testing with the end-users, it became clear that it's not enough only to distract them for a little.
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That is the reason why I needed to create a continuous distraction. After doing research on the best distraction methods, I needed a solution that requires full attention or is so absorbing that end-user will forget the fear itself.
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This was made by providing the writing exercise which is both absorbing and interesting. Writing exercise is much longer than the first focus exercise, so it may serve as the continuous distraction which helps to significantly reduce fear and/or panic.
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Finally, both focus and writing exercises were incorporated into the design and the continuous user flow. It is necessary to go through both exercises to finish the cycle. Then, the user can finish using an app or choose to dig into the articles library.
Based on the user flows, I constructed the information architecture such that there was a minimal level of difficulty to immediately accessing relevant focus and distraction exercises. After all, the goal of this product is to enable users to quickly focus and stop anxiety or panic attack.
User interface design
As I started to explore the interface and visual design, it became clear that this kind of an app - related to psychological help - needs to contain as few distractions as possible or none at all.
The objective of the interface was to keep the app clear so the users can easily find how to perform the action they need to take. Also, the other objective was to create a soothing effect on the color palette.
Because the central component of this app's experience is the focus exercise, I wanted to make this experience as simple as it can be - zero distractions, just a clear 'Start' button. For people, having a panic attack, it may be extremely difficult to orientate in the environment, and even harder on the screen. That is the reason why the Home Screen is clear and has one huge 'Start' button which can not be missed. Also, it has pulsing interaction which encourages to take action.
On the Home Screen, the user can also find the 'Emergency Call' button placed on the bottom of the screen. Users need to set up their emergency contact when they open the App for the first time, or they can do this later from the menu.
One dilemma that popped out was the UI of the focus exercise, as mentioned before, called 'grounding.'
It involves focusing on the senses instead of the person's mind, so the only thing a user can think of what the exercise asks him to do.
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At the last stage, there were two main options left for putting the 'grounding' exercise into the screen - one that shows only the current part of the task at hand, and other - that provides you the list of the actions you have already done.
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Nevertheless, the UI version with a list was the first one as I thought about, the final version of the focus exercise only shows the current part of the task at hand. After some testing and rapid iteration, the decision was made to change the list view because the testing showed that it keeps the users more distracted.
The menu was left clean and clear with easily recognizable icons. Users can access both exercises and other modules.
Writing exercise contains no distractions and allows the user to focus strictly on writing. ​The topic is chosen randomly.
Relief App contains some reading materials to address the issue and allow users to solve the problem in the long-run.
Outcome
The app was well received by the potential end-users. While it has not yet been released, it has already created some discussions between people who have the same problem and encourage them to share their experiences.
During the creation process, it became clear that the problem is even more relevant than ever, and that a lot of target audience is suffering more than they should because they lack some principal knowledge on the subject.
As a result of this experience, I learned that when designing a product for a sensitive issue as this, bringing in the target audience early on really helps to go smoothly down the line.