There are about 15 million American adults that are affected by social anxiety disorders. It is the second most commonly diagnosed disorder following specific phobias. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, fewer than 5% of people with social anxiety disorder seek treatment in the year following initial onset, and more than a third of people report symptoms for 10 or more years before seeking help.
These results suggest that there is a problem with connecting and understanding the techniques needed to change a person's perception of social anxiety.
They recognize the negative stigma and discrimination associated with having a mental illness. They don't want to be labeled.
Setting up an appointment with a doctor or therapist can be intimidating and overwhelming.
People tend to minimize their problems, thinking that everyone gets stressed and that their problems aren't that serious.
Seeing the disconnect between available treatments and the lack of people seeking them, it pushed me towards wanting to help bridge the gap and make "seeking help" more approachable and convenient. SAP Tool gives socially anxious people a sense of control over their environment while practicing their most feared social interaction.
This app is not a replacement for therapy but the first step towards seeking help.
SAP Tool, short for Social Anxiety Preparation Tool, is a mobile application designed for people who suffer from social anxiety and wish to improve their social abilities. This treatment involves exposure therapy, a means of encouraging people to confront their fears in safe environments and to reduce nervousness and avoidance.
Put your phone on a stand or prop it up to free your hands.
Select the type of exercise that you would like to practice.
Get a detailed AI analysis of your performance with your recording.
By using AI technology, it analyzes a person's performance and provides them with detailed feedback. The individual is then provided with personalized tips to improve their performance next time.
- Understand the Problem
- Empathize
- Define Project Goals
- Conduct Research
- Surveys
- Interviews
- Affinity Map
- Empathy Mapping
- Personas
- Problem Statements
- Ideate
- User Stories
- Sitemaps
- User Flows
- Sketching
- Wireframes
- Prototype
- Usability testing
- Iterate
I divided my research into two phases - a phase one where I defined the context of the problem, followed by a phase two where I conducted five user interviews, and then synthesized all of this data into an affinity map that helped me build personas, journey maps, and design ideas.
Not knowing makes my anxiety 10x worse.
- Participant Quote
Having collected a great deal of data from the interviews, I synthesized it into an affinity map to help form ideas and brainstorm design ideas to solve the problem.
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During the interviews, it appeared that there were two distinct groups of socially anxious individuals, those who avoided social situations at all costs and those who sought help to improve their social situations. As I sorted my findings, I discovered a third group of people: those who wanted to change but were too afraid to ask for help.
I feel like my social anxiety is holding me back.
- Participant Quote
With the insights and observations I gained from my research, I created three personas that captured the personality of my users and their traits. Using their guidance, I was able to identified strategies and objectives that I needed to meet in order to provide a great user experience.
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Using the insights I gained during my research, I developed five HMW problem statements. I will focus on only three of those five statements.
I love the ideation stage of the design process. This stage involves visualizing and designing solutions to the problem. Based on my research and HMW problem statement's I began to sketch out multiple ideas.
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Top Left: Self-recording
Top Right: 24/7 Counseling
Bottom Left: Reward system
Bottom Right: Gamified experience
Top Left: Personalized tips
Top Right: Exposure therapy
Bottom Left: Animated helper
Bottom Right: Connect with others
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Top: Emergency button, connects to loved ones or a counselor
Top Left: Checklist
Top Right: Emotion tracker
Bottom Left: Journal
Bottom Right: Level of difficulty for their experience
The personas helped me outline a hierarchical task breakdown. I then used that as a basis for creating a sitemap to organize all of the information and user flows to describe one possible path each persona may take within the application.
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Time to put the product to the test! During this session, I examined the app's design and ensured that it was simple and easy to use. The participants chosen for this test had previously participated in the initial research process.
Four of the participants had moderate remote testing through Skype and Zoom while one had moderate in-person testing.
The goals of these testing sessions were to uncover any usability problems in the Red Routes.
Here are 3 of the main issues that I found when testing the design, along with solutions for improvement.
Under the resources page, the "New" tab felt less personalized, unlike the "Recommended" tab.
One solution is to replace the "New" with a "Saved" tab. Users can save articles for future reading or bookmark those that resonate with them.
Once the participant was on the Practice page, it was difficult to differentiate the "Settings" from the "Instruction" screen.
I would change the color of the page's background, making the transition from the "Settings" to the "Instructions" screen more noticeable.
Participants wanted to see their full performance right after completing a practice round.
I'm going to add their recordings to the overview snapshot. The user will have the option to view and read their performance on one screen.
