Move over stigma! How design research helped us navigate past barriers to help seeking

Transcript

1. Move over stigma! How design research helped us navigate around barriers to help seeking Presented by ReachOut Australia Rawan Tayeb, UX Research Manager Design Research Conference 2019
2. Our question: How can ReachOut engage with more young people before they reach high levels of distress? ReachOut service users: • 75% had seen a mental health professional in the past • 69% had severe or extremely severe depression anxiety stress scores • 30% had strong thoughts or plans for suicide, and 16% had recent thoughts of suicide ReachOut primarily attracts young people in distress… • How can ReachOut connect with young people earlier? • How do we encourage young people to engage with preventative mental health supports?
3. Young people were involved throughout the campaign development process, from formative research through to production Empathise: Friendship groups + a pre-task activity Define: Uncovered drivers and barriers to engaging with ‘help’, and what young people found helpful Ideate: concept development based on research insights Prototype: 2 concepts were fleshed out for testing Test: Online focus groups to test concepts developed Develop: Production involved young people Test: Online focus groups to gage responses to the videos developed Refine: Edits made based on feedback collected Explore Evolve Create 24 young people involved 57 young people involved 35 young people involved
4. Explore phase
5. • To give young people time and space to reflect on their experiences • To help young people feel prepared for the discussion Why friendship groups? • Young people tell us that friends are the first place they turn to for support • We wanted young people to be around people they felt comfortable with Why a pre-task? Exploratory research was designed to make young people feel prepared and comfortable to talk about sensitive topics
6. Individual pre-task: revealed topics that young people were not comfortable discussing amongst their friends “I'd try deal with it by myself first, until I got all the way down, and when I just realized, ‘Oh no, this isn't getting much better…’ I'd chat about it, but I wouldn't ask for anyone's sorrow, you know what I mean? I wouldn't want to get anyone else involved in my problems.”
7. Persona Activity: helping young people open up and talk about sensitive topics Life is crappy… Life is good…
8. Visual mapping: helping young people share more detail on what challenging experiences might look like Family together, having laughs Parents support your goals Parents blame each other for your behaviour Maybe only tell my best friend Just push through life Disagreements divide the family Self doubt Not as close to friends Parents on edge. Arguments at home I cant react to them getting angry. If you don’t let it be it will get worse Chat to mates… it doesn’t have to be deep Know you have someone to rely on
9. 1. We found that young people are not open to engaging with messages that paint them as someone who needs help 2. We heard that connection is sought in times of stress “I don't want help, I don't feel helpless.” “If someone is feeling excluded I don’t think they would do anything about it. They'd probably keep to themselves or bottle it up and they'll start getting a little bit depressed.” The challenge Encourage young people who are not actively seeking help to engage with ReachOut’s help offering, despite their aversion to being ‘someone who needs help.’ We learnt that many young people normalise the challenges that cause them stress, and can downplay the intensity of issues they face
10. Evolve phase
11. Working with a creative agency, we developed 2 concepts with storytelling at their core Driving insight: Stories provide a point of connection and hearing from their slightly older peers who’ve been through it can be a source of inspiration.
12. Concepts needed to be stripped bare before testing, to ensure young people focused on the core idea
13. Concept testing was conducted online, where we got blunt, honest feedback from young people Why online groups? • To reach a broad range of young people • Young people can feel more comfortable giving honest feedback online Benefits: • Ability to react to concepts immediately • Less fear of judgment from peers • Less pressure to ‘please’ the moderator [Moderator shows a message] 15:49 Male A another one bites the dust 15:49 Male B this one seems petty 15:49 Female A It sounds tired and sarcastic 15:49 Male C adults trying to understand teens 15:49
14. Create phase
15. Young people told us they were tired of having adults frame their experiences for them, so we gave them the reins…
16. Watch at: au.reachout.com/videos/home-life
17. Young people engaged with this campaign more deeply than previous campaigns run “It makes me want to show this video to people that I believe need to stop being afraid to open up about their issues.” “Just the fact that everyone goes through the same things and you're not alone. I think that stands out and that it's important.” “It takes a lot of courage to say what they said, so in a way I’m inspired.”
18. Questions?