1-in-5 Browser Plugin

Project&Role

Information Challenge for incoming UMSI students

UX Researcher

My team members and I designed a browser plug-in that aims to lift the stigma currently associated with mental illness.

The problem

Currently, 1 in 5 Americans suffer from a mental illness, accounting for 43.8 Million individuals. The Mental Health movement is concentrated on creating greater support systems for people with mental health illnesses through awareness, empathy, and visibility. Generally, the movement has focused on destigmatizing mental illness and creating equal access to resources.

The process

Knowing that we would like to design a solution to help in the destigmatization of mental illness, we analyzed the various potential target audiences and decided to focus on high school students. We then ideated around various solutions, and came up with the idea to design a browser plugin that provides information about a famous individual, their accomplishments, and mental illness or disorder based on content a user is browsing. If the user clicks on “learn more,” they will be given options to participate in the mental health movement through donations and volunteer work, find local resources like community centers and hospitals that service those with mental illnesses, and find further information on the specific mental illness. The pluin works to destigmatize mental illness by showing its prevalence in popular figures while also supplying users with resources to become further engaged with the movement or seek help.

Gathering data

While one of my teammates created a clickable prototype for our browser plugin, I did research on public figures who had openly spoken about their mental health issues. The goal was to create an initial dataset of 50 individuals that we would use for our first version of the plugin.

Clickable prototype

The prototype that my teammate Paul created showcased our plugin with an article published in the L.A. Times. Next to the name of the person the article is about (in our example, the swimmer Michael Phelps), there is a yellow icon, that when clicked displays a pop-up which gives more information on the mental health condition the person has been publicly talking about, including in-depth information on the specific condition, information on local resources as well as local opportunities for volunteering and where to donate.

Presenting our idea at the Information Challenge

Current status

While presenting our prototype at the Information Challenge, we were encouraged to create a fully functional prototype of our plugin. After doing some preliminary research and user-interviews, we decided that we will have to do more in-depth user research with high school staff to determine if our approach needs fine-tuning or if we should pursue a different technical solution alltogether.