hollykhancockdc

[hollykhancockdc]

Here are our wireframes for our app ‘Minder’. We want to keep it quite minimalistic as we didn’t want to confuse anyone when they need information quickly. At the bottom of each page, we will have the forums page, the home page and then a red button which will take you to the contacts page. We decided to do this as we wanted the user to be able to quickly call someone if they needed to. In the contacts page, we will have an emergency number for a friend they are looking after on as well as numbers for people like Mind or Samaritans.

[hollykhancockdc]

Stylesheet

Below is the stylesheet for our app. We used a calming blue colour so that people will keep calm whilst on our app. 

[hollykhancockdc]

Icons

Below are all of the icons I created to use on our app.

[hollykhancockdc]

Slices

For our app, we decided to call it ‘Minder’ as we wanted it to be an app that goes alongside the charity Mind. Our tagline is ���help me, help you��� Below are the slices for our app. The first image is of the home page which we used the blue colours for the backgrounds, circles and buttons. For icons in the circles, we wanted an image that represents each word so I created the icons below. I used calm colours so that they weren’t bright compared to the rest of the app. Next to the home page is the forum page which people can click on to chat with other users with similar issues as them. 

Below is the red button page which has the contacts on. users can click on this to get the person’s they look after or are friends with’s emergency number. it also gives them other useful numbers like Mind or Samaritans. 

Next to that page is one of the mental health pages which tells the user what it is, symptoms of it and how to help someone with it. 

Lastly, these are the menu page and the search page. The menu page can be accessed by pressing the hamburger menu on the top left. This gives the user a few options to click on like the settings, about or learn. in the learn page, the user can learn about facts or about different mental health issues that they might not know about. The last page is the search page which users can easily search for a mental health problem or a symptom and then they can save them so that they are able to quickly access them.

[hollykhancockdc]

Digital context presentation

Mental health

Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices.

Over the course of your life, if you experience mental health problems, your thinking, mood, and behaviour could be affected. Many factors contribute to mental health problems, including:

Biological factors, such as genes or brain chemistry

Life experiences, such as trauma or abuse

Family history of mental health problems

The reason for choosing this topic is because mental health is a constant problem, there has also been an increase of admittance in recent years. With the increase of mental illnesses it is important to raise awareness. Those with mental illnesses know a lot about their illness. However, those around you don’t. It can be difficult to help someone with a mental health condition when you don’t understand the condition itself.

Minder-

Based on the website mind which is a website dedicated to helping inform and help those with mental health issues. It is a well known company and has branches all around the UK

Research 

I started to look into other mental health apps, most were based around meditation. A coping mechanism rather than a cure. On one of the apps there was a great feature named ‘safety pin’. This is something the user fills out, who they would need to contact in an emergency, ways of coping with panic attacks and other useful things when it comes to emergencies.

Another thing I noticed when it came to mental health apps is that they used pastel colours so appear more calming to the user. As seen on the ‘Healthy minds’ app, their use of the emotions with the pastel colours is a fun concept of the app.

We also looked at apples ‘Health’ app, this is a great way to track your health. The reason for looking at these kind of apps is because mental health is still a health condition. I really liked the design and set out of the app. The rounded squares on the main page modernised the look of the app, it also made these items stand out.

As well as research about other health apps we looked into our own experiences. Since mental health is something that most people will go through in our lifetime, most of us know at least one person with a mental health condition.

For example, I am close to someone who has ADHD, not many people know that is is very different from childhood ADHD where they are hyperactive. They often act on their first thought and can often have mood swings. This app would help me personally go on to see if there was a way to calm him down.

Marvel

We realised that there were no apps on the market to help those who have someone in their lives with mental health conditions.

Stylesheet

We used calming colours to make the app appear more user friendly. We also made sure the logo was similar to the original to keep consistency. And here are a few apps where we took inspiration for the colour scheme and style. We liked the visual aspect of the circles for buttons.

[hollykhancockdc]

A video of experiencing a mental illness that could help those without the illness to understand

[hollykhancockdc]

Plan for the presentation/ essay

[hollykhancockdc]

Logo design for the app

[hollykhancockdc]

Font ideas for the logo

[hollykhancockdc]

I started to prototype the existing app ‘Healthy minds’, it runs very smoothly as an app. There are some great features such as the learn part of the app, where you can learn useful things to help keep a healthy mind.

[hollykhancockdc]

Heres a picture of the mindmap we created for existing apps including the some of the things that we feel was useful and not so useful when it came to the app

We also wrote down any of the aspects we would like to include in our app 

[hollykhancockdc]

https://www.mentalhealthforum.net/

https://forums.psychcentral.com/

the general look of theses forums is very complicated and they all look very simple as if there has only been a small budget put into them and even then they are more places to talk and encourage you to get help. 

it seems they are more made for the people who actually suffer from depression. rather than those dealing/ living with someone who suffers from depression. 

[hollykhancockdc]

here are some of the forums and the topics what you can talk about in them

[hollykhancockdc]

Research Idea

For this project, I want to research about health and how people are now trusting apps and online doctors rather than physically going to the doctors.

I think this will be an interesting thing to research as I think whilst people are becoming more trusting with googling answers to their problems they are still worried about the privacy of their information. Currently, there are privacy issues with apps like Facebook so how do people trust doctor apps that have even more personal information on.

To start this research, I will look into doctor apps like Push Doctor which has an advert on TV. I will also look into how many people prefer to google their issues compared to going to the doctors. After this I will read articles to do with people’s thoughts on going to see their GPs rather than using Google and vice versa

[hollykhancockdc]

Push Doctor

https://www.pushdoctor.co.uk/how-it-works/app

Push Doctor is an app that can be downloaded where people find a doctor to talk to about their problems. they also issue prescriptions, send them to your nearest pharmacy as well as sending out sick notes to you to send to work. 

The app says that it is free to download however once downloaded you have to select a package which is not free. below are the prices of the two packages:

Problems: 

The app says that it is free to download, however, doesn't say that you have to pay to see a doctor. There are many additional fees which you don’t expect.

The other problems were when they used to advertise that they were part of the NHS. below is an article that explains what people thought about the adverts for Push Doctor and how they thought it linked to the NHS.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/push-doctor-adverts-banned-advertising-standards-authority-nhs-links-a8298806.html

It also explains how Push Doctor didn't put all of their reviews on their website as they only picked the ones with 4 stars or higher. Doing this doesn't give customers a fair review of the app as they are only seeing the best reviews and thoughts. 

[hollykhancockdc]

An app that records the persons mood as well as activity, this can be helpful for those with depression that don’t feel like doing anything 

[hollykhancockdc]