Case study: Linkmate
Linkmate is a social network for mental health support. Through their app and website they aim to connect ‘members’ (people who don’t have anyone to talk to) with ‘mates’ (people who have time and motivation to listen and help).
The brief: Use a human centred design approach to find opportunities to grow Linkmate’s user-base; taking them closer to their North Star goal of ensuring 1,000,000 people have a mate to talk to.
The approach
My role: Team Lead UX research and design
The team: 9x UX/UI design students
Duration: 3 week design sprint, January/February 2023
Context: Academy Xi UX UI design transform project (real client)
Using the double diamond approach I led a UX team in researching the problem space and then designing solutions to meet the client brief through four key phases.
Discover
Purpose; gain a deep understanding of the problem space, both in terms of Linkmate’s current users, their current product, but also potential future users. If we could understand their world, we can be in a better place to design solutions. We carried out:
50 in-depth interviews
120 survey responses
Heuristic review of the website and app
Competitor review
Academic research review
Analytics review of the current product
The heuristic review. I mapped out each page across their network and highlighted areas where accepted UX principles were not adhered to.
User interviews
From the 50+ interviews clusters began to form across four main empathy maps:
attitudes and behaviours on conversations and isolation
attitudes and experiences around helping others
opinions on Linkmate’s current offering
opinions on key competitors
“I felt as though I was being a difficult person or I was ruining their day by calling them up to talk about my problems. I felt like I was a burden to them”
I conducted 15 of the 50 interviews and led the empathy mapping process
“When people are at their most emotional, they don’t feel like they want help. But it’s always nice to know that there is someone, or that the door is open whenever you need it. I didn’t have that, but I wanna be that kind of person for others.”
2. Define
Personas
From the exhaustive research and via more synthesis and empathy mapping the we came up with two key personas that best represented Linkmate’s target audience. In summary;
Koji, a third year student who’s had mental health challenges in the past, but now feels equipped to be able to help others.
Jennifer, a first-year student new to Australia who’s surrounded by socially dominant people she doesn’t feel comfortable reaching out to for help.
Customer journey map
With clarity on the personas, the huge breadth of insight from the interviews and survey responses allowed us to build an accurate narrative of both Jennifer and Koji’s experiences - detailing the primary pain points and providing focus for our next phase.
3. Develop
With personas and customer journeys identified and our focus narrowed to two ‘how might we’ statements to solve.
I facilitated two ideation sessions with a total of 10 Jennifers and Kojis.
The session allowed Jennifers and Kojis to come up with ideas to solve the key ‘How might we’ statements from the previous rounds of research.
They discussed their ideas and group-voted on the most desirable options:
The ‘How Might We’ statements:
“How might we empower Koji to use his past experiences and personal background to contribute to a community that makes him feel valued?”
“How might we provide a support system for people like Jennifer who are prone to isolation and uncomfortable opening up to the people around them?”
4. Deliver
The three previous phases led the team to a place where the primary solution needed to include the language of positive reinforcement to appeal to Jennifers, and allow Kojis to post personal content that would make Jennifers feel comfortable to reach out to them for a conversation.
Paper prototypes were tested with users, leading to low fidelity, then mid fidelity and finally, high fidelity wireframes using Figma.
Low fidelity
Paper prototypes were generated by the team with different members focussing on different solutions that were ideated and then voted on by Jennifers and Kojis in the previous phase.
I ran five usability tests talking to users about their thoughts on the solutions.
Tests were scripted to gain insight into how users felt each prototype most positively impacted the ‘how might we’ statements.
Mid fidelity
Figma mid fidelity clickable prototypes were developed focussing on the scope of features that resonated most from low fidelity:
Improved ‘mood check in’ where users can keep a diary of their mood.
Improved user profiles and a clearer homepage.
I conducted a further five usability tests using the mid fidelity prototype.
High fidelity
The final round of testing introduced a culmination of all previous rounds of test findings including;
A ‘stories’ section where ‘mates’ can generate content about their mental health journey to encourage people to reach out to them.
Improved visuals and final copy.
Enhanced iconography match user expectation
Improved ‘user profile’ interface.
