Shabbir Faizy
Designing a platform for mental health practitioners to expand and optimize their help under 988
988 is a new approach to mental health, substance use disorders, and suicide prevention in the US communities to save the lives of thousands of American citizens and provide them help when they need the most.For this challenging yet rewarding project, I played a key role in facilitating its Research and design .
Overview

988 is a US new 3 digit hotline number and Mental health service that provides people help in time that they need the most.988 is not just a new number to call – it is an opportunity to rethink how we approach mental health, substance use disorders, and suicide prevention in our communities
Its a high level extension of existing 10 digit health lifeline number
Sector
Mental Health , Government
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Challenge
To make a product from scratch that would solve the problem of millions of people seeking help related to mental health through a 3 digit hotline number.​
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My Role
Research , Define , ideate
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Project Time
4 weeks
Research
The important question to ask here why was Research required ?
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because 988 is a new feature yet be rolled out
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An exisiting 10 digit number for mental related help already existed but 988 requirement was much more
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Research Plan
As always i started with a Research plan that helps me guide through my entire research process
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timeline - timeline was strict and i had to choose my process efficiently keeping in mind the budget and resources.
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What i know - 988 is a 3 digit hotline number yet to be launched hence limited inormation.
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being a new product Primary research was important , hence partcipant recruitment was to be started early
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Secondary Research ( 5Ws )
Since the in information i had about 988 was not much and also recruitment of users took time so i started with secondary research , with my 5Ws question.
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Who are the persons involved in Mental health problem and counselling ?
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What is the Problem associated with it?
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Where does this process take Place?
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When does this mental health problem occurs ?
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Why has mental health became a problem?
The consequences of how the U.S. currently cares for people in mental health crisis
in 2020
91,799
People died from drug overdose
45,855
People died by Suicide
1 in 4 people fatally shot by police from 2015-2020 had a mental illness
of people in jail report a mental illness
Data Source : CDC NCHS data brief no - 428
Key takeaways
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Its a high level extension of existing 10 digit health lifeline number
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People experiencing a mental health crisis /drug addict usually fear to dial 911
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30 million Citizens are not in not any treatment for their mental illness
User Interviews
I managed to recruit two health professionals for the user interview , which were the end user for this product , i had to make sure that these health professionals belonged had a vast experience and were responsible for front end care.
you can check my interview questions and the after call note-making to gather pain points.

Verbiage is very important when dealing with people facing mental crisis.
Key takeaways
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These people seeking help need immediate de-escalation
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The ones who have attempted a suicide need a minimum 72 hours care to be risk free
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The mental health facilities network depends on how seriously the state takes this crisis.
Synthesize
I was overwhelmed with the insights that i gathered , from user interviews , secondary research and notes from other peers , and had to come up with a way to prioritize data , so i decided to go with affinity mapping keeping in mind the large number of data as its classification was first priority.
Affinity Mapping
Affinity mapping turned out to be the perfect synthesis process at this point to classify all insights gathered under common meaningful group that would make sense and would give roadmap for further process.

Key takeaways
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Call center professionals and Mobile crisis unit were important.
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laws , and difference between 988 and 911
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An additional not expected group was formed that dealt with follow-up of calls by call center after the first call by the mental health seeker.
Personas
After successfully grouping insights , it was clear who were the end users that we need to target , and it was found that it comprised of two personas , one were the Call center professionals , who would take calls and the other Mobile crisis unit who would be needed in emergency situations only.
Call Centre Professionals

Mobile Crisis Unit

Key takeaways
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All end users are mental health expert
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Call centre professional will de-escalate callers in call itself - TEAM A​
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Crisis team takes care of high acuity cases - TEAM B
Journey Mapping
Since the research gave the idea of basic flow that each persona will take but to make the end users experience smooth and easy it was important to understand each step of the flow , because these health professionals would be exposed to numerous cases per day ( 12 million calls assume to come in 988 per year by federal health officials )
Hence journey mapping was important at this point to get ideas of touch-points and associated problems and to figure out opportunities like automation , condensed data etc wherever applicable to improve the health professionals product experience.

Key takeaways
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Real time share of data between teams is needed in severe cases
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Too many callers hence follow up of each becomes difficult
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Difficult to get all details from caller as they are disturbed
Key findings after synthesising
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There are two teams , Call centre and Mobile Crisis Unit (MCU)
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Severity of cases is decided by the the call center
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High severity cases requires immediate action of MCU.
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Two portals were needed one for call centre professional and other for Mobile crisis unit.
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MCU unit would need the product in the devices which is portable like mobile/tablets as they would be in a rush.
Ideate
We were on a very tight deadline and developers needed to start building soon. At this point it was critical to decide further process which should be both non-time consuming and effective. Our team were faced with following questions
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Should we design mobile first?
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should we go for sketches , low-fi wireframe then hi -fi wireframe?
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By when we can have a prototype to demo and test?​
Hi-Fi Sketches
To tackle this i came up with a not so common approach , but it was need of the hour.
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being good in sketches i decided to skip brainstorming , sketch and wire-framing for Call centre portal as it had many pages , and go for hi-fi sketches that would serve all three purpose. No doubt it took time but was good experience and was efficient

Key takeaways
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Action toggle feature as per need of call center professional
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Assessment aid to decide risk factor
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Booking appointments, referrals , hospital beds.
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Dispatching MCU as main function on high risk cases.
Wireframes
Since MCU portal was mobile and less pages , so rough sketches were made followed by wireframes.

Key takeaways
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Linking of notes from call center to MCU for critical live information
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Map feature for tracking location
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Selecting bed in nearby hospitals
The MVP
Even we came up with several ideas that could feature on the product , but it was important to select those that met business goals and also can be completed in the deadline.
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Capturing of information of the caller
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Assessment of the caller based on standard assessments and deciding severity
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Assigning of referrals , appointments , or even hospital beds if required.
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Sending MCU unit in high severity cases and providing them with callers info.
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Management of each individual case till satisfied cure.
Unique Selling Proposition ( USP )
The ideation at this point was pretty obvious and was not very hard , infact any competitor would come up with similar features if proper design process is followed.
But we needed to come up with a unique feature that would enhance the user experience. This was achieved because of a deep research where i learnt that How difficult it was for the Call center professionals to manage all cases including follow-up as follow up was critical with mental crisis patient.
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A case management feature was needed where all cases would be categorized as per severity
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The journey of each case can be seen
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Further actions can be added like appointments , referrals after getting feedback on current actions from patients
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Social media tracking.

Overall ideation highlights
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Seperate portal for each of Call centre professional and MCU
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Follow up feature for case management
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Live linking of data between two teams
Design
Call center portal

case management of callers

Assigning of appointment

Selecting MCU unit for high severity cases

Callers list with severity status
Mobile crisis unit portal



Referral booking flow
Map to reach Caller
Action page for MCU

Home
Challenges and compromises
Unfortunately, one of our main challenges is the lack of resources and time that we have day to day, With this challenge, we often have to reiterate our designs in order to be achievable within time and technical constraints, while still providing more value to our users.​
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Short deadline prevented us from applying all functions that we figured out on ideation. like i wanted a detailed view of social listening to access facebook account of callers.
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Being the only Researcher and UX Designer it was like initial 2 weeks solely dependent on me and was hectic.
The Learnings
Every Project experience brings some learning with it , so was this.
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This was a special experience for me as i was answerable for the whole product , uptil development which was a big responsibility but i performed with maximum efficiency.
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Understood the planning of a product that needs to be delivered in short time , and how time needs to be allocated to each part of Research , design and development.
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Connecting with developers from a early stage is important to understand the feasibility of design and its deployment.
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Utilizing the whole team in all process even though they are not proficient at it , like involving developers in brainstorming session to suggest ideas. This is important to keep whole team at a same page and spirit.
Conclusion
We successfully did the demo of our product to the leadership team and was ready to be deployed
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Ready before 988 date of launching
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Linkage of all mental health facilities under one umbrella
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New features like social listening in all possible way to be included in 2.0 launch