Bridge

Bridge is a person to person chat app to assist in decreasing symptoms of anxiety amongst students in Malaysia. It was created for my final year thesis during my Bachelor’s degree.

This was an end-to-end project. I conducted primary research on-site to inform my thesis and UX decisions, crafted the brand identity, and created a working prototype of the app.

UI/UX design, Branding, Illustration

Adobe XD, Adobe Illustrator

Role:

Software:

The name Bridge was chosen to reflect the idea of building strong foundations for your mental health, as is done with structural bridges, and to tie in to the idea of connection.

I designed the brand identity to represent the three main characteristics of the app: welcoming, grounding, and friendly. Through a well-balanced colour palette and the lowercase logo, the branding came together to showcase the important values of the project.

User Research

In order to build Bridge, I had to conduct first-hand research in the form of anonymous surveys, cultural probes and interviews. I also conducted market research by trying out several similar mental health apps that were on the top of the Apple Store charts at the time, and reading user reviews about them. Additionally, I conducted second-hand research by reading several academic journals around mental health in university students, and mental health apps.

The data I collected informed my decisions when it came to deciding what components and features the app would have, how the app would look and feel, and how the entire user experience should be. Building on real data allowed me to make decisions that would actually solve the problems that my chosen audience had.

Here are some of the stats that I collected that built the foundation of my thesis and this project:

What are the usual causes of stress in your life?

What psychological effects of stress and/or anxiety do you experience?

What physical effects of stress and/or anxiety do you experience?

40% of people feel stressed 2-3 times a week during their academic year. This is a relatively high number for how often it occurs, showing that it is a common problem.
86% of people feel moderately to very equipped to handle these negative emotions by themselves. This shows that that users would simply need support, and not necessarily consistent therapy or medication.
80% of people have not seeked out professional help. They either do not have enough time, think it's too expensive, or don't feel comfortable. This shows the advantage of having an anonymous app that doesn’t take up much time to use.

User Journey

Bridge has three main sections:

The anonymous chat function
Mood tracking
Emergency response

The users’ journey through the app was kept to be as simple as possible, with all three sections being accessible to switch between directly through the bottom taskbar, along with the user profile.

The user experience was a consideration every step of the way due to the nature of the audience, who may be facing a difficult time in their lives, which is reflected in the language that is used, the timing of the animations and the style of UI animation between screen changes.