The Mind Project
A digital portfolio
(application & website & advertising piece)
About
The Mind Project (TMP) is a non-profit project founded by four University of Technology (UTS) students in 2022- with the mission of improving mental health for International students attending universities throughout Australia. This project aims to simultaneously educate and improve the various forms of mental health impacting international students.
Project type
Groupwork - Analysis of problem scope, creation of application prototype, publishing of owned website and advertising piece.
Timeline
6 weeks
A digital portfolio of The Mind Project (TMP)
My Role
I am in charge of creating most of the app prototypes, and the whole website and also, assisting in its video pitch creation. On top of those, I collaborate with team members to do both first & secondary research around the problem scope
Deliverables
click for more!
Introducing Team Members
About The Mind Project
The Mind Project is a non-profit project founded by four university students in 2022, aiming to improve mental health for International students attending universities throughout Australia.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the top 10 nationalities of overseas students in 2021 were all Asian. With the large prominence of International students from Asia, The Mind Project intends to reach as many students struggling with mental health as possible. This includes but is not limited to issues like homesickness, loneliness, and burnout.
Our Reasons
The Mind Project all started with myself.
My own personal experience of moving to Australia as a student from Indonesia was the starting point in choosing and understanding what social issue we should try to make a difference in. According to my first-hand testimonies and secondary research, factors contributing to this current situation are financial stress, language barriers, the pressures of employment, assimilating into a different culture or society, and tertiary performance, and forms of discrimination, bullying and racism.
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However, one particular area we discovered to be overlooked at times was the stigma of mental health in many countries of origin for international students. With the top seven countries of origin for international students deriving from Asia, a closer look into different cultures discovered that mental health is not talked about as widely as it is in Western countries, like Australia.
Therefore, it is of significant importance that our primary mission with The Mind Project is to simultaneously educate, inform, and provide support services to help improve these urgent circumstances.
Our Goals
As we work towards implementing our goals through our app, we have created a resourceful and specific strategy to be implemented within the next three years that we intend will benefit many international students.
Our strategy focuses on providing information on local help resources:
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1. Connecting international students who otherwise would struggle to meet other students
2. Providing immediate help to students who may be struggling and find it hard to open up to the people they know
3. Getting to the root of mental health issues, no matter the complexity
4. Spreading awareness on the not talked about enough issue of mental health within Asian communities
Our Solution
This is where our app, The Mind Project, comes in to try and help save the day. The Mind Project aims to simultaneously inform, educate, and improve behaviour linked to an individual’s mental health.
Our team has broken down this app into three main categories of support: Introductory Quiz, 'Project You,' and Support Service Feature.
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Introductory Quiz
(Mandatory to improve personalisation)
Aims to discover current the mental wellbeing of the user, cultural context, and any external circumstances impacting wellbeing (e.g. study load, work life, stress of finances etc.).
This helps personalise the student’s usage of the app
PROJECT YOU
(Daily Habit / Wellbeing Self-Tracker)
Tracks the daily progress and progressive habits of international students, who may be feeling symptoms of sadness, homesickness, isolation, and anxiety
Helps user to view progress and habits (e.g. daily exercise, meditation), whilst also withstanding as an intrinsic routine that sets up for better and more informed behaviour
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Support Service Feature
Users can access information and direct links to support networks.
An emergency feature to call 000, LifeLine, or National Sexual Assault Centre will be available for individuals who needing immediate support (the helplines will also be translated according to chosen language to ensure transparency and clarity
A ‘map-like’ feature to show local support services, counsellors, cultural specific support groups/organisations, and university-related support networks
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Our Key Features
A Language Selection & Introductory Quiz
A language selection & five-question form will be provided to gain a final grasp and understanding of the user. This section will finally cement a better understanding of our user, aiming to create a fully culturally personalised experience for the individual.
The Mind Project's services can be delivered in local languages to address international students’ longing to their mother tongue; therefore increasing user experience
The Mind Project's data privacy is a core ethical value. We believe your data should not be sold to third-party apps, integrations or companies for financial gain. We endeavour to keep our user’s data secure as a top priority.
A variety of scaled and multiple-choice type questions will be provided alongside an assortment of questions, such as asking factors that may have impacted stress or whether they have felt stressed within the past six months. Definitions will be provided for terms that may be unknown to the user, in order to break down initial barriers and provide transparency for all users, despite their previous background or knowledge.
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PROJECT YOU
The Mind Project's pivotal selling point is our designated daily wellbeing self-tracker, ‘Project You’, where the user inputs responses according to prompted questions provided by the app.
Our main intent with this app is to evoke a sense of accountability and self-awareness of that user’s mental wellbeing. Self-trackers are an important way to help improve one’s current mental wellbeing and set up the foundations for a better lifestyle full of healthy habits.
Main Elements :
1. Daily notification to track emotions, utilising emojis or emoticons to convey and recognise feelings easily.​
2. Calendar mode to view past tracking and entries.​
3. Activity suggestions to help address problems.
4. Goal tracker to input initial goal(s) and continuously update them weekly. This feature also allows us to gauge the suggested activities.
Support Service
Our final component of The Mind Project is to be the main resource in accessing appropriate support networks, providing direct links to emergency support networks, such as LifeLine and Beyond Blue. Ensuring that we provide these nationwide support networks aims to reinforce that these support networks are able to be accessed anytime anywhere.
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Additionally, The Mind Project demonstrates a sense of personalisation again to the user by displaying local community events and groups, that is reflective of their cultural background. This feature emphasises our focus on helping international students connect with their home away from home, social groups and networks that are culturally reflective. This also aims to create a sense of community and socialising beyond studying and work for the student, which can be factors of stress for them.
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Our Communication Platforms
Video Pitch
Acknowledgments of Ethics & Design Justice
Ethics
When looking to design an app ethically it is crucial to cover the following areas: usability, accessibility, privacy, transparency and persuasion, user involvement and focus.
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The Mind Project is heavily centred around the mental health and well-being of international students. Our app remains transparent, tied to its focus through its functionality and usability as we move away from achieving common goals and navigate more towards personal goals, behaviour strategy acknowledging the effort and time needed for self-learning to have a result.
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Accessibility is a crucial consideration as it provides services to those whose first language isn’t English. We have adapted the app for different languages and provided mental health services for each of the countries the app caters to.
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Usability of data privacy is also a core ethical value at The Mind Project, and we have implemented features that keep users’ data secure whether in their home country or whilst studying in Australia. The Mind Project also believes that data should not be sold to third-party apps, integrations or companies for any financial gain. We endeavour to keep our user’s data secure as a top priority.
Design Justice
In achieving our goals, The Mind Project will utilise design justice principles by centering its design processes on one demographic to address their ‘deepest struggles’. Designing WITH users, and NOT FOR them to provide a community-led and sustainable technology solution that dismantles exclusion, minorism, and racism.
How does The Mind Project's design system address inclusivity to fellow International students in Australia?
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Services can be delivered in local languages, therefore increasing user experience.
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It optimises its personalisation feature that provides help based on users’ needs:
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Through a community recommendation system (cultural-specific) that encourages users to e-meet people with shared conditions & situations; and meet people through cultural events.
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Through a curated personal page that is based on each user’s mental-health state.
3. It partners with local hotlines and counselling services to provide more pertinent/ relevant help
My Takeaway
Overall, the building of The Mind Project has become one of the most valuable experiences in my uni experience. And being in a group with three other enthusiasts did motivate me to work well, too. With different areas of expertise that we each have, we formed a harmony of the division of work that work very well.
I am very invested in building this project, I hope that can continue this project later in the future.
A Snippet of Us!
