Ziefah Health
The goal: Enhance the current mobile application by creating a new feature that streamlines the triage process for mental health patients, ensuring efficient and effective support.
The objective of Ziefah Health is to bring culturally appropriate mental health support to Muslims by connecting them with providers who can understand their background. An important consideration is that the Muslim community is uniquely reticent to seek therapy. The goal was to triage the respondents so that Ziefah Health could provide support to the people who needed it most. Towards that end, Ziefah wanted to create an automated triage process. The thought was to split respondents into two groups- people who needed immediate help, and people who could receive long-term support
Our recommendation was to create three chatbot options for an instant chat feature, that would connect clients to multiple providers who specialize in addressing their mental health concerns. Our culturally sensitive chatbot will expertly guide both users and providers by asking culturally appropriate and mindful questions, ensuring the perfect match with a compatible provider, while also providing companionship to users during the waiting period for connectivity. We wanted to understand the issues related to mental health and support around that, as well as users’ comfort and background using Chatbots.
To start out project, we tried to understand why Muslim people are uncomfortable seeking help for psychological issues. We looked at multiple sources to understand the basis for this discomfort so that we could address it directly. We turned to reputable sources to learn about the stigma many Muslim people may face when attempting to address their psychological needs.
We interviewed multiple people and discussed their experiences with mental health counseling. We also used our time to understand their perceptions, both positive and negative, of chatbots. We employed a structured questioning technique to elicit get feedback. We also asked participants for their own suggestions on how we could make the concept more
Our process to organize the results started by sorting the cards into categories based on obvious themes. We were trying to understand the interviewees' general feelings about chatbots and what online features they felt could be enhanced by adding a chatbot.
Completing this process led us to find several trends which became key insights:
Drawing from the insights we acquired, we delineated the key requirements for the Ziefah Health chatbot, emphasizing a streamlined yet impactful triage process. It was imperative to ensure that users could effortlessly navigate the chatbot's inquiries, enabling them to select the most suitable responses without overwhelming the user during the intake procedure.
To evaluate the effectiveness of our prototypes, we conducted A/B testing sessions with a group of 14 participants via Zoom. During the sessions, testers engaged with the prototypes, simulating interactions with a fully operational chatbot on the Ziefah Health mobile app.
The testers were told what the app's objective was, which is to facilitate connections between individuals in the Muslim community and offer a wide range of therapeutic support. Specifically, we focused on testing a newly added feature that enabled users to instantly access a hotline service and engage in direct conversations with a provider.
Results:
In response to Flow A, where the bot was an essential part of the process to access the hotline, users said:
"I don’t understand the purpose of this; a counselor could easily ask these questions."
In response to Flow B, where the user was able to choose their own level of care from a list of triage options and the bot provided companionship during the waiting process:
"This one immediately feels more responsive."
"I prefer Flow B because if I am in a crisis mode, I don't know if I trust the bot to assess my situation.”
Insights:
The response to Flow B was dramatically stronger than to Flow A. This confirms that people want to choose their level of care.
In addition, we conducted a comprehensive competitive analysis, meticulously examining analogous platforms within the industry. This helped us uncover potential care gaps that Ziefah Health could effectively address, while gaining invaluable insights into the essential features that users have grown accustomed to when seeking online mental health support.
This affirmative outcome validated our progress, as our comprehensive analysis revealed that none of the scrutinized competitors encompassed the trio of distinctive features that Ziefah Health pledges in this iteration:
Culturally competent support tailored for the Muslim community.
An intelligent chatbot empowering efficient triage procedures.
An expedient hotline offering immediate and unwavering support.
Armed with the invaluable insights garnered from our extensive research and design endeavors, and guided by the refined flow resulting from the A/B testing, we embarked on creating a fully functional, high-fidelity prototype to present to Ziefah Health.
In this phase, we further enhanced the initial Flow B, enriching it with deeper incorporation of Muslim spiritual practices and symbolism, while introducing expanded answer options for users to engage with the bot's inquiries.
We spent a lot of time looking at a range of bots. We specifically focused on those in the medical care, mental health, and customer service space. We wanted to check for how the bots interacted with humans, how they use language, and how they deliver messages, including choice of language.
Armed with these comprehensive research findings, we dedicated substantial time to creating flows between the Ziefah Health chatbot and users seeking support.
Summary:
Employ empathetic and supportive language, ensuring the conveyed tone is sensitive and non-judgmental. Use gentle language that will make the person feel welcome.
Integrate language that resonates with Muslim culture and values, creating a familiar and comforting experience for users.
Implement a well-structured flow using a branching approach, enabling users to choose from a set of predefined responses to prompts. This approach minimizes the potential for misinterpretation by the chatbot, promoting effective communication.
Layout:
Our goal was to create a layout, based on our interviews and our research, that defined what people want and need from a chatbot that could be leveraged to help identify needs and direct people appropriately.
A clear way to access the hotline from the home screen
Prompts with multiple answer options
Focus on assessments that prioritize safety
Provide access to emergency services
Language choice - tone and empathy
Next Steps
Chatbot Website Implementation
Ziefah Health can, and will, create interest in mental health in the Muslim community.
Some features we would suggest exploring as this project moves forward would be to:
Create a “spiritual leader” hotline feature on the current website. Make sure it is also accessible on the mobile app, so that it can be used when there is a problem.
Create a phone option since this was mentioned by multiple users
Allow users to create reviews in order to understand user experience with the chatbot.
Utilize the same concept to penetrate other minority communities, or other niche needs.