The Problem
The South Asian American community remains under served in the mental health space.
This community needs a safe space to be able to decrease feelings of isolation, build resiliency and seek culturally relevant guidance.
The Research Process
This is the research process that I follow for executing my studies. Through this case study, I will walk you through each of these phases in detail.
Overall, I helped the team develop research questions, then scoped, planned, and executed the study, as well as analyzed and presented the findings. I will conclude with impact.
Team: 2 UX Designers, 1 Project Manager, 1 Founder
Tools: Google Workspace, Zoom
Identify Problem
Collaborated with the stakeholder team to understand research objectives
What I did:
Read through background information
Facilitated discussions with Founder, Project Manager and UX Designers to align on objectives and learn about specific content
Analyzed and synthesized a preliminary survey’s findings to understand the target audience, learn target issues, and gain a high level understanding of how that audience wants support in regards to those issues
Main questions for stakeholders:
Who is our target user?
Where do these users need support?
How might we support these users’ mental health concerns?
How might this product improve the user’s experience?
How might we motivate users to utilize this product?
Scope
Scope of the study was discussed with the project stakeholders to fit within the 1 month timeline
What I did:
Facilitated discussions with Founder, Project Manager and UX Designers to align on key areas of interest, as well as prioritize and consolidate research questions
Main questions for stakeholders:
What decisions will this study help with?
What are we trying to validate?
Plan
60-minute, remote interview sessions to better understand South Asian American needs and wants in regards to receiving support for mental health issues and social struggles
N = 5 South Asian Americans
Surprisingly, the only participants we were able to schedule for the sessions were all Indian women.
Logistics:
Created study materials: study plan, study screener, study script, form for note-taker, and data analysis sheet
Collaborated with team for participant recruitment and prioritize screening criteria
Execute: Session Flow
Analyze
Users want:
Anonymity
To feel safe
To not feel alone
Culturally relevant guidance
A practical tool that “turns stories into action”
Throughout the sessions, I debriefed the stakeholders daily and coded preliminary findings.
During this check in process, we were able to determine any iterations for the script for future sessions.
After the sessions were complete, I coded and synthesized all of the findings.
“There is a lot of shame and stigma attached to sharing personal struggles, and an anonymous resource could be really useful.”
Impact
Delivered valuable, user-centered insights to project stakeholders to develop an MVP to test for the next stage of the product development lifecycle
Final Thoughts
Lessons Learned:
Participant recruitment is not always easy
Clear and constant communication with product stakeholders is vital
The scoping process involves considering not just user and business needs, but also the time constraints in which quality insights have to be delivered to the team
*Image credits: Some images were discovered through Google image searches: the first image of card sorting was found on https://talebook.io/learn/new-product-ux-process/how-to-conduct-user-interview/, and the map was found on vectorstock.com. The rest of the images were created by me.