CalmIllini

As college students, we wanted understood that many of our peers struggled with mental health problems. We decided that it would be best to focus this product on students that went the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign and were in the ages between 17 to 22.

We decided to go through the process of segmentation, starting from college students and narrowing it to “UIUC students dealing with academic anxiety, stress who have an interest in journaling and meditation.”

We created a journey and empathy map to get a better understanding of our overall goal for the platform, as well as how the user would feel through the flow of CalmIllini.

Initial Interviews

* Scroll to see the summary/interview insights

Person “N”

Demographics

• Age: 20

• Year in college: Junior

• Hometown: Vernon Hills, IL

• Gender: Female

Questions:

1. What does “stress/anxiety” mean to you?

   1. “Feeling overwhelmed and not being able to focus when theres something on the back of my mind”

2. How do you manage stress/anxiety through the academic year?

   1. “Balancing out social and academic life. I think I've realized that it’s okay to take breaks sometimes. Usually I do that by going on walks or going on my phone”

3. Within the past year, what has caused you the most stress?

   1. “Finals season and school overall”

4. Have you ever battled mental health using a tool (app, meditation, or journaling?

   1. “I have not”

5. Have you seen any resources around school that focus on mental health?

   1. “I’ve seen that there is a counseling center and I know McKinley (UIUC health center) offers help”

6. Are there any topics within mental health that you would want to know more about?

   1. “I want ton know how to deal with anxiety overall and maybe learn how other people deal with it”

• Coping techniques people use bring them delight

• Aspects of academia bring people pain points

• Inconsistent resource visibility (saturated, but not easily visible)

  • Lots of Googling

• Techniques people want to learn vary

Interview Insights

• Academic stress impacts student mental health

• Students tend to engage in familiar activities to combat mental fatigue

• Students found campus resources satisfactory, but not sustainable

• Most people found resources through same means

Interest Survey Data

Self reported, people…

• Don’t currently use digital resources consistently to manage mental health

• Sometimes meditate and journal, otherwise express interest in doing so

• Use exercise, creative expressions, and counseling services

• Feel motivated if it’s personalized, private, always available and easily integrated 

• Feel concerned by lack of time, lack of motivation to use the digital hub consistently, and resources being unhelpful

At a glance:

• Total Responses = 24

• Between Friday 10/18 - Wednesday 10/23 at 2 pm

• Success Metric Target: 70% response rate for “yes”, plus email addresses

Relating to our goals

• Academic stress moderate to overwhelming, in line with course work

• Cognitive impact high

• Although interest rate decreased, people express significant interest in using their social networks

• We cannot confirm that journaling and meditation are current effective methods BUT there is established interest

Goals:

• Student relationships to academic stress

• Assess how social life relates to academic stress

• Validate whether journaling and meditation are effective

Competitive Analysis

New segmented core audience: students experiencing academic stress

• SWOT Analysis

  • MANUAL

  • Mantra Health

  • Koru Mindfulness

  • CAPS

Summary/Results

• 2 out of the 4 competitors incorporated 1:1 care

• If a platform had journaling, they did not have meditation

  • We could incorporate both meditation and journaling

• Direct competitor - Mantra Health

  • There is already a “all-in-one solution” (Shows our solution is viable)

  • We need to find what we can add to our platform to make our solution better

Each member of the group came up with 2-3 features that the application should incorporate. We then voted on the most important features and moved on with them.

Prototyping