UX Research · Product Design
Moodly
Conducted exploratory research with high school students to understand barriers to accessing mental health support and translated research findings into a privacy-centered digital mental health platform through iterative UX design and usability evaluation.
01 · Context
Understanding the barriers teenagers face when seeking mental health support
Teenagers experiencing mental health challenges often face barriers when seeking support. While schools may provide counselors and families may try to offer support, students may hesitate to use these resources because of concerns around privacy, confidentiality, accessibility, and the perceived lack of understanding from adults.
Our team wanted to better understand how high school students think about mental health support and what they would need from a platform designed to help them access resources. We developed our own problem statement and conducted exploratory primary research with students ages 16–18 to identify the barriers, preferences, and expectations that should inform a potential solution.
How might we design a mental health platform that makes it easier for teenagers to access trustworthy support while preserving the privacy, confidentiality, and autonomy they value?
02 · Research
Understanding how teenagers seek and evaluate mental health support
We conducted six semi-structured interviews with high school students between the ages of 16 and 18. Our participants included three girls and three boys, with participants identifying across East Asian, South Asian, and White/Caucasian backgrounds.
The interviews explored students' experiences and perceptions of mental health support, including their relationships with parents and school counselors, attitudes toward professional therapy, expectations around privacy and confidentiality, and openness to peer-based or online support.
Research Questions
- What barriers prevent teenagers from seeking mental health support?
- How do students perceive existing resources such as parents and school counselors?
- What role do privacy and confidentiality play in students' willingness to seek support?
- What types of professional and peer-based resources would students find valuable?
Competitive Analysis
Identifying gaps in existing mental health platforms
Before moving into solution design, we conducted a competitive analysis of existing mental health and therapy platforms to understand how current products approach professional support, peer communities, privacy, and accessibility.
This analysis helped us identify opportunities to design a more teen-centered experience that could combine professional resources with additional forms of support while placing privacy and anonymity at the center of the experience.
Competitive analysis of existing mental health and therapy platforms used to identify opportunities for a more teen-centered experience.
03 · Research Synthesis
Four themes emerged from our interviews
We synthesized our interview findings to identify recurring patterns across participants' experiences and expectations. Four key themes emerged that shaped the direction of the platform and influenced subsequent design decisions.
Gap Between Teens and Parents
Although parents often want to understand and support their children's mental health needs, participants described a gap in communication and mental health education between generations. Students felt that they were often more familiar with available resources than their parents, making it difficult to receive support tailored to their specific needs.
Reluctance to Use School Counselors
Participants expressed reservations about seeking mental health support from school counselors. Their concerns centered on privacy and the perception that counselors were too closely connected to teachers and parents, creating uncertainty about whether conversations would remain confidential.
Privacy and Confidentiality
Privacy emerged as a consistent priority when participants discussed online mental health support. Students wanted a safe environment where they could discuss personal experiences and express emotions without worrying about exposure, judgment, or their situations becoming known to people around them.
Multiple Forms of Support
Participants expressed interest in accessing different types of support, including licensed therapists, peer advisors, online forums, and in-person appointments. While students valued the accessibility and anonymity of peer support, they also expressed concerns about receiving potentially harmful advice from individuals without professional training.
04 · Insights to Design
Translating research findings into product requirements
The research findings directly informed the platform's proposed features and design priorities. Rather than treating the interview findings as isolated observations, we translated each insight into specific product requirements.
Research Insight: Students were highly
concerned about privacy and confidentiality when seeking
mental health support.
Design Response: Make privacy and anonymity
foundational principles across the platform.
Research Insight: Participants expressed
moderate to high interest in speaking with licensed
professionals.
Design Response: Prioritize access to
professional therapists and mental health resources.
Research Insight: Students wanted opportunities
to speak with peers or slightly older individuals who could
offer advice and shared experiences.
Design Response: Explore peer advising with
appropriate safeguards and recruitment of trained or
experienced peer advisors.
Research Insight: Although online therapy
offered greater privacy, participants valued the human
interaction associated with in-person support.
Design Response: Explore optional in-person
appointments with therapists on campus.
Research Insight: Students perceived a gap
between their own mental health knowledge and that of their
parents.
Design Response: Create a dedicated parent
education section with accessible information about
adolescent mental health.
05 · Define
Translating research into users and scenarios
To translate our research findings into actionable design requirements, we developed two key user personas representing distinct patterns of mental health support needs identified during our research.
We also created two key user scenarios to explore how students might interact with the platform across different support-seeking situations. These artifacts helped us evaluate whether the proposed experience could accommodate different levels of privacy, support, and resource needs.
User personas developed from recurring needs and behaviors identified during primary research.
User scenarios used to explore how different students might navigate the platform and access support.
06 · Design
From research insights to an iterative product concept
We translated our research findings and user scenarios into an iterative design process, beginning with storyboards and low-fidelity wireframes before progressing to higher-fidelity prototypes in Figma.
The design process focused on creating a flexible support ecosystem where students could choose the type and level of support that felt most comfortable, while maintaining privacy and confidentiality throughout the experience.
Visualized how students might encounter mental health challenges and navigate the platform to seek appropriate resources.
Explored the platform's information architecture, core navigation, and primary user flows.
Tested early concepts and interaction patterns before investing in visual details and high-fidelity UI.
Developed a high-fidelity Figma prototype incorporating research findings, user scenarios, and refined interaction patterns.
Design progression from early storyboards and wireframes to the final high-fidelity Figma prototype.
07 · Key Decision
Making privacy a foundational design principle
Privacy and confidentiality emerged as the strongest recurring concern across our interviews. Students were hesitant to use school counselors because they were uncertain about who might learn about their personal situations, and they wanted greater control over how and where they accessed mental health support.
As a result, we chose to treat privacy and anonymity as foundational product requirements rather than optional features. This influenced how we approached the platform's proposed support pathways and reinforced the importance of allowing students to choose the level and type of support that felt most comfortable to them.
At the same time, our research challenged our initial assumption that online therapy alone would meet students' needs. Participants valued the privacy of online services but also expressed an interest in the human interaction associated with in-person support. This led us to explore a hybrid model that could offer both online resources and optional in-person appointments.
08 · Usability Evaluation
Evaluating the experience against established usability principles
After developing the high-fidelity prototype, we conducted a usability evaluation using the Nielsen usability evaluation framework. We documented key usability defects and evaluated the prototype against established usability principles to identify opportunities for improvement.
Usability evaluation documenting key usability defects and opportunities for refinement.
09 · Outcome
A research-informed, privacy-centered mental health platform concept
The project culminated in a high-fidelity Figma prototype for a privacy-centered mental health platform designed around the needs and concerns identified through exploratory research with high school students.
The final concept brought together professional mental health resources, peer support opportunities, educational content, and optional in-person services, with privacy and confidentiality serving as foundational design principles.
Final high-fidelity Figma prototype translating research insights into a privacy-centered mental health support experience.
10 · Reflection
Letting research challenge our initial assumptions
This project reinforced the importance of allowing research findings to challenge initial assumptions. Our original concept focused primarily on online therapy, but interviews revealed that students valued in-person interaction as well and wanted access to a broader ecosystem of support.
I also learned that designing for a sensitive domain like mental health requires thinking beyond usability. Trust, privacy, confidentiality, and perceived safety are fundamental parts of the user experience and must be considered as core product requirements from the beginning.