Inclusive Design for Mental Health and Well-being
By: Sneha Parhi
Tags: Inclusive Design, Mental Health Awareness, UX Design, Design Thinking, Mental Health

“Inclusive design is a design process (not restricted to interfaces or technologies) in which a product, service or environment is optimized for a specific user with specific needs. Usually, this user is an extreme user, meaning that this user has specific needs that are sometimes overseen with other design processes. By focusing on the extreme users, Inclusive design will enable them to be able to use it, while many users having (temporary) similar needs will also be covered.” — Wikipedia

And before I even go further into this topic, I hereby solemnly swear that I am not an expert on this topic, but it is a topic I am very passionate about for both personal and professional reasons.

Amongst other things that I am passionate about are travelling, daydreaming, chilled beer and above all food that hasn’t been cooked by me. But since most of these things have been taken away from me recently (ahem ahem, silly pandemic!) I have replaced them with endlessly scrolling through the internet, mostly with no purpose whatsoever.

Which lead me to discover the charm of memes.

Source : Internet

If you have spent even couple of hours on internet, you must have come across more such memes along the same line. So let me ask you a question. Did you laugh at these? Was a tiny shake of head that was involuntary coz you could relate to these?

You are not alone. We have all been there, done that. At some point in our lives, probably more so in the last few months. The common denominator in all these memes is the use of humour to acknowledge mental health issues. And while humour is a brilliant coping mechanism to deal and acknowledge mental health issues, how funny is it really to be a part of it?

To put things into perspective, these are some of the stats on mental health issues around the world right now.

“ One in four people in the world will be affected by mental or neurological disorders at some point in their lives” — The World Health Report 2001 “ Nearly two-thirds of people with a known mental disorder never seek help from a health professional” — WHO “ For 2017, 792 million people lived with a mental health disorder. This is slightly more than 10% of the world population.” — Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation

Now if we wanted to delve even deeper and take a look at hard numbers, this is what it would look like.

Source : Internet

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. We haven’t even started talking about ADHD in adults, schizophrenia, panic disorders, OCD and other such forms of mental illnesses that affects people worldwide. Mental health issues have become a collateral damage of this pandemic, one that not enough people are talking about. And studies suggest, while this pandemic will get over, what it will leave behind on its trail is a generation of people riddled with mental health issues triggered by months of lockdown and isolation.

But why should we care?

And by WE I mean us UX/UI designers. Why this is something all designers should start thinking about and how even a tiny effort from our side could change the way people interact with the internet. We need to care because if you ask any designer what is THE most important thing when it comes to designing digital experiences, they would say “THE USER”. We live by that rule, we validate every decision we make by that rule, if there were a bible of UX designers out there, the first page would talk about human Centred design.

And that brings us to Inclusive design. And when we hear inclusive design, our minds as designers instantly jump to accessibility. We design for those with physiological difficulties, but what about the people with psychological difficulties?Because is it really inclusive human centred design if we don’t cater to 10% of the world’s population?

Disability takes many forms, and so should inclusive solutions.

We never wonder how do people with cognitive differences perceive the digital world. If we did, it would make us stop and be grateful for something we have always taken for granted. For people who know don’t know, this is what it feels like when you have cognitive difficulties.

Anxiety

Source : Internet

Anxiety has been described as knowing that you turned off the stove, but having to turn your car around to check anyway.

People experiencing anxiety turn to the internet to assuage their anxiety by distracting themselves. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Often times internet makes it worse. People with anxiety often fear that they will do something wrong with your website or product.

Depression

Source : Internet

For users with depression, any ordinary day is one minor annoyance away from becoming an exceptionally bad day. While depression is a psychological issue, it’s affects sometimes manifest physiologically. For instance, depression actually impairs contrast perception — the world really does look grey for users dealing with depression.

Bi-polar and ADHD

Bi-polar disorder and ADHD or attention disorders are often left in the fringe of consideration since we mostly design for “attention of the user”.

We think we need to get the user’s attention, where as the problem is, they give attention to everything. The trouble is focussing on one thing, and the more things that are competing for their attention, the harder it is for them to focus on anything.

What can we do to include the and make the digital world an easier place for them? Well, thankfully a lot.

1. Stop the Clock

Remove the unnecessary and anxiety inducing time limits and countdown timers that certain websites have. Giving users enough time gives them a sense of control and reduces anxietyThis also includes, removing the omnipresent “only 2 left in stock” from e-commerce websites. We all know, no matter how many you buy, it’s always THE 2 left in stock.

2. Provide immediate assistance

Create checkpoints within the digital service, where users are given access to support from a human. These checkpoints should be easy to access and highlighted and exist everywhere across the platform.

If your platform cannot provide immediate assistance, provide access to call-backs and appropriate response time. (e.g., A representative will get back to you within 48 hours)

3. Room to breathe

Real walls and proverbial walls can feel like they’re closing in when you’re experiencing anxiety or a panic attack, so an advice to designers and web experts: Stop crowding. White space is your friend. Give your content — from words to images — room to breathe on the page.

4. Keep animation to minimum

Animations are cool. They are hip and happening and everyone loves them. Well, not everyone. Animations, parallax, moving content at scroll can be distressing and trigger anxiety in people. So while it’s not a hard NO to animations, keeping it minimal and at only places where they are needed is the way to go.

5. Create a hassle free exit option

Create options that make it easy for users to leave a product or service for any reason. Clearly explain the implications of leaving in an easy-to-find location. When possible, allow users to leave permanently, freeze or pause their accounts, and hide conversations without permanently deleting them.

Keep the exit door open, no one likes to be trapped forcibly. The user will come back, if they are given them the option to leave first.

6. Apply/remove friction

Friction in UX design refers to anything that prevents users from accomplishing a task. The sense of powerlessness that websites and apps can provoke can often stem from unnecessary friction, such as making the option to cancel your subscription or deactivate your account just a little too hard to find.

Simultaneously, applying friction at well meaning places to cause minor obstructions to user journeys can give users the assurance and control to assuage their anxiety.

7. Less is more

Last but not the least, we as designers need to remember less is more. We always think we have the best interests of our users when we are designing products. We take our research, insights, methods and processes and we get our brilliant minds running so as to create the best product for our users to experience. But sometimes, with the intention of going good, we do too much.

An average American person consumes close to 34 gigabytes of information. DAILY. Thats 350 percent more in the last three decades. We are drowning in information and content, and it’s easy to lose the way. More so, when your mind is not functioning at its 100 %. Our job is to make it easier for them.

Conclusion

We don’t have to plan for every situation, or every possible question someone might have. Make the contact information easy to reach. Put the navigation in words humans understand and make it clear.

Build a design that focuses on a person on the other side of the screen before anything else, and we can say we have done our job well.

Lastly we need to remember what’s our normal might not be a universal normal, because there is nothing called an universal normal. If we can’t design for the diverse, we should then just call ourselves experience designers and forget that, user was ever a part of it.

Disclaimer : The images used in this presentation are for representation purposes and have been used to co-relate to the content provided in the article. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to my current employer, organisation, committee, or other group or individual.

References

https://medium.com/dichotomies-in-design/inclusive-design-for-physical-well-being-versus-psychological-well-being-92a3bde2548c#:~:text=When%20speaking%20about%20inclusive%20or,the%20physical%20conditions%20of%20users.

https://github.com/UKHomeOffice/posters/blob/master/accessibility/dos-donts/posters_en-UK/accessibility-posters-set.pdf