User Interface Design Recommendations for Mental Health Mobile Application Design

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic’s devastation resulted in millions of deaths, economic turmoil, and unprecedented curbs on social interaction. These had a significant impact on people’s mental health (Abbott in Depression, 2021). According to a study conducted by the National Mental Health Program by the Government of India in 2020, 6–7% of the Indian population, which was estimated to suffer mental illness issues in 2001, has now increased to more than 15%. Thus, addressing this issue is of utmost importance in today’s time. A considerable amount of mobile apps and software are launching every day to address this issue but aren’t proving to be as effective as envisioned. One of the main causes for this is that people who are primary users of these apps face challenges in accessing the user interface due to their mental health state when it comes to absorbing instructions and information provided by the system. As a result of inappropriate UI-UX, these solutions became inefficient. The purpose of this study is to identify the patterns (design recommendations) for mobile applications that influence end users’ ability to interact with the application. The methodology applied to the study firstly identifies suitable graphical components such as color, typography, shapes, images, illustrations, and background to design UI components. These components are then used to generate Mockups. For testing the Mockups, participants are recruited from the mental health community. In this phase, documenting user reactions through interviews aids in qualitatively assessing and identifying critical errors. These logs are further analyzed and synthesized to provide design recommendations. It is anticipated that design recommendations from this study will assist in creating standards, guidelines, and procedures to expand the effectiveness of mobile applications for people with mental illnesses.