Mind's Project for People With Mental Health Problems

Context

Over the past decade, the internet has developed as a fundamental part of the lives of many people, transforming the way in which they receive information and communicate with others. Ever since the delivery of the internet, health advocates alike have focused on its potential as a rapid and appropriate resource for health information. However, studies have shown that 60% of our older generation in the UK aged between 70-75 search for information about their health. Yet, even with all the facts and figures provided, there are still very limited websites on the web that are functionally designed for this generation. (ref) Developers and designers should bear in mind that they will all be Golden Agers someday. Designing elderly oriented UX not only helps the elderly, but it aids society as well.

The tech industry’s one-size-fits-all attitude needs to change. This project will be grounded on a particular website called Mind, which is a mental health charity founded in 1946 as the National Association for Mental Health. The aspirations of their website is to offer information and advice to people with mental health problems ranging from A-Z. It also works tremendously to develop public awareness and understanding of issues relating to mental health, by the use of donations and fundraising. (ref) The problems relating to Mind’s current website will be highlighted later in this dissertation followed by a sensible approach on solving these issues, by clearly specifying the objectives of the project including the social and ethical implications.

Problems with existing system

To begin, Mind’s website has many positives however there are a number of glitches with the website. From a deep analysis, it is noticed that one of their mental health sub-topics regarding ‘Loneliness’, is not senior-friendly or in fact even aimed towards our elders. Surprisingly, it has chiefly directed all of its information and resources towards middle-aged demographics between 40-55 in mind. Many would find this very hard to understand as research shows over half (51%) of all people aged 74 live alone and are categorized as lonely. (ref) For explanation purpose, the term “not being senior-friendly” means the design or user interface is not catered towards our seniors nor does it have any specific functionality that aids an elderly user to overcome loneliness within their website. It is also highlighted that senior citizens are among one of the most swiftly increasing but incredibly under-served user groups online.

However, please take note that there are health related websites on the web that do take age into concern. For example, The Mayo Clinic website is easy to navigate which exists of slideshows and videos. (ref) While accessibility has gained drive among designers, countless websites and applications like Mind continue to provide negative-to-lukewarm user experiences for the mature older adults. In addition to this, by no means throughout this dissertation does it aim to undermine the mind website as it has an exquisite amount of accurate and helpful information encouraging certain users to overcome loneliness; it does however limit certain senior-friendly functionality and also has a poor UI design that would be valuable to our senior audience, for example;

• A lot of text

Mind’s website is crowded and busy, it has tons of text and images. Visitors get confused and if they can’t understand or navigate through within a few seconds of arriving they will leave.

• Large amount of scrolling

Large amounts of scrolling can frustrate any user, but it can particularly be frustrating to seniors. All of its content is made into one page, which is long and tedious to read.

• Search function does not work

From investigating their website, it was noticed that their search function is broken. No matter what word was typed, you were brought to an error page. From this you were directed to click on the site map; another unappealing feature.

• Hard to navigate

Their menu is a hamburger style which would be hard to find for users. Using innovative UI elements can confuse users and also wastes time. Also to note that there is no “Home” button in the navigation menu, instead you click the logo to return. Yes, this may be established for the younger users but users aged 65 and over are unfamiliar with this.

Target audience

The aimed target audience of this dissertation is senior adults, aged between 70-75 and both male and female. To get a better understanding of the problem it is best to define why this is the intended target audience. One motive is, Mind’s current target customer is the younger generation rather than the elderly. Secondly, there are a number of articles that dispute loneliness is most communal in adults, either male or female and are aged between 70 and 75. One research states, “There are over 2. 2 million people aged 75 are living alone. ” thus backing this argument up. (ref) Plus, despite this being a prevalent concern loneliness is believed to be most commonly a result of retirement or bereavement of a loved one. (ref). The third and final reason why this dissertation has targeted this demographic is due to the fact Mind’s website does not accommodate for this audience, regarding functionality. Older demographics have a higher rate of abandoning a task if they fail at their first attempt. (ref) One reason for this is because their generation was not born into the digital world, instead they are labelled as digital immigrants with limited IT skills. (ref).

To continue, for the purpose of this project, 5 users were interviewed to gather additional information however there are two model users named Ann and Dave who will be representing these users within the target audience and they will be referred to throughout this dissertation for a more realistic setting. It is however understood that two people are not necessarily representative of the entire target audience that is mentioned. Ann is a 75-year-old, independent woman who just recently became a widow. Her life has drastically changed since the death of her husband after being married for 55 years. Even though Ann is surrounded by family, she stated “I am lonely due the fact my husband was my best-friend and my family have to get on with their own lives, I can’t be a burdened to them or society”. On the other hand, Dave is a 70-year-old man, newly retired and never married. While some people take to retirement easily, Dave has taken longer to adjust. He said, “When I retired I lost touch with the people I’d work with. Since retirement, I find it hard as I have no family to turn to. ” In addition, Ann and Dave both have limited IT skills and agree that they avoid to go online to seek advice and help due to websites being “too technical to use. ” In fact, a fifth (20%) of people over 65 describe themselves as ‘not confident’ online.

Approach and objectives

It is obvious, that senior citizens are among one of the most swiftly increasing and incredibly neglected user groups neglected when it comes to the design of products. There are significant challenges explicated in 1. 2 faced by an older user when it comes to using the mind website. How can these be better addressed? A sensible approach to address this issue is to successfully create a suitable and feasible website for Mind that will be catered towards our non-savvy tech users. Bearing in mind, a senior-friendly web design is based on vision and cognitive aging research and a senior-friendly website is a system with information that older people can easily see, comprehend and navigate.

This will be completed by the following requirements;

User can sign up for community events & for befriend group Registered users will be able to click certain local events to attend that mind are providing i. e. Christmas dinner/Painting/Chess.

• Once attended, they will be able to rate the event out of 5 stars. This will give Mind an idea on what events where successful and not successful.
• Some events will have restrictions on the spaces available, i. e. once the max limit is met no more users will be able to join.
• All attended events will be saved to their user profile and will give additional events due to their preference.
• Registered users will also be able to sign up for the be-friend option by filling in a forum. Befriending is a facility where if eligible the user gets a companionship on a regular basis over a long period of time. On the contrast, non-registered users;
• Aren’t allowed to attend these community events until registering.
• Further, non-registered users can also use the befriend option but only to apply on behalf of another person. Again, if they wish to sign up on behalf of themselves they will have to register.

User can increase/decrease text size & play audio As you get older, sadly it is natural that vision deteriorates meaning they find reading increasingly difficult. By adding an option to customize the font size to their preference, by clicking on a button to increase or decrease size will solve this. In relation to this, many elderly users experience sight loss. The option of an audio button to read out the text available will allow seniors with difficulty reading to still have the ability to do so.

User can donate through postageMind users have the ability to donate money that require online payments, e. g. PayPal or automatically entering card details. Many seniors are dubious of the idea of trusting the computer with their personal bank details. Dave said “How do you trust them?”. To take-away this fear an option to post their donation will be available in addition to online payment options. This will help unravel seniors from lacking online confidence or being frightened to take the plunge and access the web for help. These are just a handful of examples of additional functionality and requirements that will be constructed to create a suitable website for this generation. You make ask, how does this approach justify the problem? But by adding features like the be-friend group or increasing text size aids the proposed users like Ann and Dave to feel more confident on the website and most importantly given the opportunity to overcome loneliness.

Benefits

There are a number of benefits from the proposed solution for not only Mind but for the targeted audience. For example, by re-designing the website to accommodate seniors could expect to receive 35% more business from them and taking the time to update the system to welcome senior users can guarantee that their first impression is a positive one. (ref) Another advantage for the user is that they are given the opportunity to meet new people by joining the befriending scheme. This increases confidence and improves their mental health as they have someone to talk to.

Summary

Overall, it is clear that the prominent problem of Mind’s current website on “Loneliness” is it’s not marketed for users aged between 70-75. There are a number of explanations why this is the case such as small font size and large quantity of text. This projects foremost focus is to answer this issue by re-designing a user-friendly and coherent website for Mind that will accommodate the human aging process especially those who label themselves as lonely. The most important goal when designing and creating products for senior citizens is simplicity. All features implemented will be easy to use, and taking into account the limitations that are presented by the users’ knowledge, skills and perception capabilities. However please take note, this dissertation does not aim to reinforce pessimistic stereotypes of seniors or interpret in any way that older people are accordingly less logically adequate than their younger counterparts. The main focus is to create a website that will help create equal digital knowledge opportunities for seniors, who are a substantial part of that demographic.