UX design for Mental Health Facilities
Ellie Mental Health Redesign & Restructure
September 2022 – January 2023
Synopsis:
Ellie Mental Health is a healthcare franchise that specializes in ending the stigma behind mental health treatment, and providing inclusive and innovative methods for helping individuals feel better. EMH recently became a franchised business in August 2022. A new website was necessary to showcase their abilities as a nation-wide healthcare company, as well as add on a location finder that supported the new franchisee movement.
In the end, the main priority of this project was to increase conversion rates of the individual locations. Our team was successful in achieving this goal.
Role:
UX Designer
Contributions:
Conducted Qualitative & Quantitative User Research
Analyzed The Research Findings
Built The Information Architecture
Established Strong Brand Elements
Designed and Prototyped Using Adobe Xd
Presented Final Designs To A Board Of Stakeholders
1: Problem Statements Overview
1: 01
“The user is a parent to a child or adolescent who has recently noticed their child going through a tough time emotionally, they need to find their child some professional care from a trusted therapist because therapy may help the child feel better.”
1: 02
“The user is an adult in their late 20s, early 30s who is struggling with the impacts of life. Whether that be dealing with postpartum, grief, generalized anxiety, depression, phobias and just need a trusted professional to talk to, they need to find a therapist that will help them with their needs. Finding a facility that is near by and a therapist that understands their specific needs will help the user feel better emotionally.”
1: 03
“The user is a young adult who is between the ages of 18 and 25. They may be dealing with transition periods in life and need mental health care to get them from point A to point B. They need to find a therapist that can genuinely listen and help them navigate life because without this help, their mental health may struggle.
2: The Users
2: 01 | Research Summary
Research for this project was conducted by our web team and includes qualitative findings from client conversations and supporting quantitative research provided by Pew Research Center. Using current data, we were able to establish three personas for the website.
2: 02 | Personas
Ashlyn: Established Adult
Age: 29
Job Title: Teacher
Education: Bachelors Degrees
Income: 65k Household Income
Family: Husband and a Newborn
Goals: Find a therapist that can help with her postpartum depression. See all the available therapists before hand. So she can have a say in what therapist she connects with.
Frustrations: She feels alone. Being a full time parent and a full-time employee. Time is always against her. She needs a process that is easy and quick to get signed up.
Jenelle: Parent
Age: 45
Job Title: Wedding Planner
Education: Associates Degree
Income: 100k Household Income
Family: Husband, 2 teenage children, one dog
Goals: Find a therapist that specializes in adolescents or family therapy. She wants a facility that is close to home so it isn’t too far of a drive or walk for her teen.
Frustrations: She has searched for therapy in the past for her teen, but all the questionnaires and match making processes target individual therapy. Distance to the facility.
Brian: Young Adult
Age: 22
Job Title: Graphic Designer
Education: Bachelors Degree
Income: 35k Household Income
Family: Single, One Cat
Goals: Find a therapist who can genuinely listen, and let them feel heard. Seeking a calm environment to open up, doctor’s offices and clinical settings bring up previous traumas.
Frustrations: They have received therapy in the past but it always feels so clinical. This makes them feel like there is something wrong with them. Would like to pay via insurance.
2: 02 | User Journey Map
3: Design Process
3: 01 | Inspiration
The first step in this process was to create branding that reflected what the user would resonate with. The colors and graphic elements were slightly changed after we gained permission from the client. The colors used before had the same chroma across the board. The old brand colors were too loud for the objective we were aiming for. The old colors were created on a sense that Ellie was fun and approached therapy in an innovative way. However, it is necessary that the user feels a sense of calm and inclusivity when browsing the site. The fun theme should be an undercurrent, not the star focus of the show when it comes to therapy. You will see below items of design inspiration, the old colors, and the updated new colors.
3: 02 | Ideation
Using the sitemap that was created during the empathizing with users stage, I was then able to map out some rough ideas of the template layouts. Having the visual inspiration helped me create possible layouts that fit best with the user flow and overall emotion of the templates.
3: 03 | High-fidelity Prototype [First Draft]
Typically after the hand-drawn wireframes, my team would create a low-fidelity to test that all the functions are working correctly. But because of time restraints we went ahead and umped to high-fidelity prototypes to speed up the process.
The goal of this first draft is to see how the design feels structure wise going from a wire-frame to a digital design. Branding begins to be introduced. The construction of the first page in the user journey (for this instance the homepage) is used to create the visual characteristics that will be carried throughout the website. This typically includes colors, buttons, branding elements, header and footer, and other components that may be used on other pages.
Over the lifespan of the project, the templates went through 4 major transitions.
3: 04 | High-fidelity Prototype [Finalized Draft]
4: Post-Development
Our developers translate the prototype into a functional WordPress staging website. Next step is to comb through the site to check all functionalities of the prototype were successfully translated into code. Heatmapping and continued testing occur during this stage of the project life cycle. Below are some additional findings after the site went live.
- Users scroll further down the page using mobile devices vs desktop (which is great since we have more mobile users).
- People are still clicking on “services” that is linked in the bottom. About 7% of all visitors scroll down to the bottom to find this information.
- Locations page seems to be working perfectly. No indications from the heat maps that users are straying away from the designated user path.
- It was found that process step #5 on the home page, the title “Start Your Mental Health Journey With Ellie” had clicks on the word “Start”. We have plans to change this word choice to hopefully avoid this confusion with the user.
5: Reflection & Growth Areas
The impact of this redesign generated positive feedback for the client and boosted their online performance. Ellie started as a small Minnesota company with a few clinics when they came to Beacon Media + Marketing, they now have over 500 clinic locations throughout the US. The website has become a hub for mental health awareness, and help across the nation.
The key areas of improvement can be described below:
- Established a fun, and inviting brand identity that got users excited about starting their healing journey.
- Created high-contrast focus areas for company selling points.
- Made one of the main user flows “Find My Ellie”. This included an easy to understand map with locations closest to the user. This new user flow alone accompanied a huge growth in conversions.
- Carefully placed CTAs to help users navigate the site to find exactly what they are looking for.
