Company Mission

To understand how the mental health of teenagers is uniquely impacted by social media.

My Role

2015 - 2016
User Research, User Interviews, Contextual Inquiry, Quantitative Research, Persona Creation, User Journey Mapping, User App Flow, Wireframes, User Testing, Project Management, Collaboration.

As Co-Creator, I was part of a core group of 3 student designers assigned the task of creating a product or service that helped teens manage their mental health around their use of social media.

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Problem Statements

Since Austin Center for Design is a school focused on designing for social impact, our entire cohort in 2014-2015 selected the topic of mental health as our pain point from which to work. After careful deliberation, we coupled that challenge with a user-base:

  1. Teens are expected to be online 24/7 and keep up appearances. How does this affect their mental health?

Methodology

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RESEARCH
RESEARCH

Contextual inquiry teenagers in their homes and places they frequent, with their counselors and teachers, with friends, and even via skype.

DOCUMENT
DOCUMENT

Post transcripts & images on wall for entire team to see. Create user personas. Summarize findings.

COLLABORATE
COLLABORATE

With teenagers to validate & iterate on ideas. Collaborate with each other, listening for new insights & ideas.

CREATE
CREATE

Summarize core values and rapidly ideate on design solutions to problems. Create low fidelity mockups for iteration.

TEST & ITERATE
TEST & ITERATE

Prototype paper product with users, observe & listen to user feedback, iterate on designs with high-fidelity designs, and work with developer on working prototype.

MEASURE IMPACT
MEASURE IMPACT

Test value proposition with simple solutions and measure success of engagement. Iterate on ideas based on user interactions discovered.

REPEAT
REPEAT

Then, do it all again. Test with the same users and new users. Understand pain points. Cut bulky ideas, so an MVP can be established. Test MVP with relevant users. Iterate Iterate Iterate.

Insights & Solutions

We used contextual inquiry & interviews to parse out the problems teenagers face today with the abundant social media technologies and how it affects their mental health.

We reviewed our participant data, finding patterns & synthezing insights. As a team, we then rapidly generated ideas and prototyped designs, testing with some of our original users for feel & relevancy.

From this research & testing, we discovered that what teens today lack most is a safe space to be themselves. Teenagers are not going to get off the internet anytime soon and with 24/7 access, that’s a lot of image upkeep for even the most educated in marketing & advertising. Parents are on facebook, friends are on instagram, and displaying your best self online isn’t an option, it’s a part of life. One slip-up sticks around forever. Being ugly isn’t allowed.

INSIGHT 1: TOOLS TEENAGERS USE TO EXPLORE IDENTITY ARE DISMISSED BY ADULTS, STIFLING THEIR PATH TO SOCIAL CONTRIBUTIONS.

  1. Our design solution was aimed at positioning teenagers as experts of new technologies.

Insight 2: SOCIAL MEDIA DRAMA IS THE NEW SEX ED AND NOBODY WANTS TO DEAL WITH IT.

  1. Our design solution aimed to provide paths for acknowledging and addressing social media drama.

Key Learnings

  • We sought to understand & empathize with how teens use technology and found ourselves learning a lot about our own biases & expectations around feelings toward teens & social media use.

  • Social media is for sunny skies & selfies. What teens lack is a place to be real.

  • Context matters. The realME app is - A Real World Layered Over Your Fake One”

Highlights

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FINAL PRESENTATION

My portfolio is still a work in progress. Find out more about this project in our final presentation.

VIEW PRESENTATION