MeuPsi - Remote therapy

Current scenario

In February 2020, the first case of coronavirus was reported in Brazil. All of a sudden we had to create new social habits, follow new hygiene rules, and go into social isolation. The Coronavirus pandemic today (2021) has more than 4 million deaths and the rate of face-to-face psychotherapy calls had a drop by 44.6% in the first months.

Even with the great increase in the demand for remote psychotherapeutic care, the practice is still very commonplace. With the new regulation of telemedicine in Brazil and the publication of CFP regulation nº 04/2020, which exceptionally and temporarily suspends CFP Resolution nº 11/2018, it was possible to regulate the provision of psychological services online.

Project's goals

Create an online platform that helps the connection between newly graduated psychologists and people in need of psychotherapeutic care, breaking the geographical barrier, through remote psychotherapy consultations.

In addition, we expect that the project will be implemented in the 2nd half of 2021 and that after its implementation, we will have 80% of patients enrolled even 6 months after the first consultation and that psychologists will have at least an increase of 3 new clients each month. after registration.

First validation and quantitative research

To better understand the needs of patients and psychologists, 2 proto personas were built resulting from a desk research. The construction of these proto personas served as the basis for structuring a CSD matrix, which is the Portuguese acronym for “Certezas, Suposições e Dúvidas” (Certainties, Suppositions, and Doubts), a tool that helped us to validate some assumptions and doubts, a fundamental step for us to begin to understand the pain of users.

To prioritize our hypotheses, we use the Impact x Knowledge matrix, we map all doubts and assumptions according to our level of knowledge and importance to our solution.

Based on previous prioritization, we developed questions to validate or not our hypotheses. Through these responses, we can better understand the needs of our potential users.

Our research was carried out through the Google Forms platform, resulting in 160 responses, divided between three types of participants:

• Psychologists
• Patients who have had or are undergoing psychological counseling
• People who have never had therapy

After analyzing and synthesizing the response data, we had the following insights:

Qualitative research

As a way to try to answer the doubts that emerged in the quantitative research and delving into the contexts of our users, we interviewed 8 psychologists and 10 patients, all from different parts of the country, and we had the following most relevant data:

Solutions alternatives

Looking for some alternative solutions to achieve our goals, we used the “How might we” technique to rewrite our opportunities right after a market and competitor analysis. Then we evaluated each of the formulations for the impact and effort required, and arranged them in the matrix below:

Having arranged the opportunities in the matrix according to the impact and effort required, we prioritize for the construction of the solution those with high impact, generating value for the business, and low effort.

Prioritized solutions for psychologists allow:

• Expanding the reach of patients;
• Better managing the schedule;
• Transmitting greater reliability and safety to the patient.

Prioritized solutions for patients allow:

• A more assertive choice by the user;
• Ease and flexibility in scheduling.

In this sense, the solution prioritizes meeting the diverse needs of patients, wherever they are, bringing essential elements to the choice of professional, and providing security for care, so they can take advantage of what can be extracted from psychotherapy for their improvement. The connection wherever you are, through the app, unites those who seek help online safely, with those who want to offer a qualified and safe service of psychological anywhere in Brazil.

Chosen solution

After prioritizing the solutions, each team member developed their own 4-Step Sketch, where we generated the Annotations, the Free Drawing, the Crazy 8', and the low-fidelity Sketches, and selected the most suitable screens for each one, organizing based on User Flow.

First usability test

We recruited 5 patients and 5 psychologists for the first usability test through the low-fidelity prototype arranged in the Marvel application. We asked that everyone who took the test, thought aloud and commented on errors and doubts they had.

To access our low fidelity usability test in marvel, click here.

Click here to access our complete usability testing material, where we explain in detail the feedback received by users and the improvements that were made throughout this process.

User flow and wireframes

By analyzing the feedbacks we had in our first usability test and using the low-fidelity prototype as a basis, we developed the following Wireframes with their respective User Flows within the application.

Second usability test

We recruited 17 patients and 8 psychologists to test the usability of the wireframes displayed in Maze. We shared the test link with users and asked everyone to do the same tasks proposed in the first test, so that we could analyze the click data and whether or not they had completed the tasks in the ways we imagine

Click here to access our complete usability testing material.

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Concept

The name "Meu Psi" was conceived from the reception of a psychologist towards his patient, focusing on the relationship based on trust on both sides. The illustration, where we have a balloon that refers to the brain and a heart shape, denoting the mental care addressed during psychotherapeutic treatment.

Style guide

The project's styleguide was developed with the aim of maintaining visual consistency, making the application scalable and with reusable elements, which will help us in future improvements to the solution.

Click here to access our complete style guide material.

UI Design and prototype

With the creation of the medium fidelity prototype, based on the feedbacks from the tests and the style guide created during the project, we generated the following high fidelity prototype, with its interactions.

Third usability test

We recruited 5 patients and 4 psychologists for usability testing of the high-fidelity prototype through Figma. We asked that everyone who took the test, thought aloud and commented on errors and doubts they had. We kept the same tasks as in the previous tests.

Click here to access our complete usability testing material.

We were able to understand through this project, all the steps that must be followed in a structured and clear way, without "guessing" and that one of the most important steps for the success of the solution is the research with our users, because without it the chance of failure is huge; we should try our best to understand the real need to build a viable solution with the lowest possible cost and that generates a good result.

Next steps

As we know that every product is constantly evolving, we can point out some issues that need to be improved and taken off the ground to make our solution as assertive as possible.

• We need to analyze the most bureaucratic part of the business, where we will have to connect payments from professionals and patients;
• Deepen and create the most specific screens of each function within the “profile” menu of users;
• Deepen the Writing part of the solution, making the texts more appropriate and more realistic for the day-to-day of users;
• Create a platform test access;
• Generate more usability tests so we can improve it;
• Generate a filter of information and topics for publications.

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