Lise Antunes Simoes, senior UX designer
Overview of the UX design process of suicide.ca
- Client : the AQPS, a Quebec association for suicide prevention
- Goal : offer a new suicide prevention product with a unique feature : a bilingual chat service 24/7
- Time span : 2 years (1 for research, 1 for production)
- 4 types of users :
- people with suicidal thoughts
- relatives and friends worrying for someone
- people grieving for someone who committed suicide
- professionals and social workers
- Product :
- Mobile app (cell, tablet)
- Responsive website (desktop, cell, tablet)
- Personalized self-assessment of mental health and tools for self-management of different mental problems
- Chat service
- Launch : 2020
Preliminary UX research
Comparative study
About 12 applications were tested and compared, specifically in suicide prevention and also more globally in mental health management.
Personas
Following workshops with stakeholders and social workers involved, 14 personas were designed to represent the 4 different types of users, their needs, skills and challenges. Stories and verbatim were scripted to show different moments of their lives and how the product help them solve their problem.
Particular emphasis was placed on the people with suicidal thoughts who don’t behave the same way depending if they are experimenting a suicidal crisis or not. Answer to different levels of emergency was critical in this project.
UX design
Example of flowchart
Example of wireframes
Section for people with suicidal thoughts
The wireframes were all designed for mobile first, in high fidelity. They included real textual content to make sure that everything could fit properly, as the project was very dense and complex.
On the left, a view of the final interface. On the right, the wireframe with the explanations destined to the UI designers, developers and QA testers to detail the behavior of the product.
Menu
Journal
This tool is based on scientific work and is used in psychology clinics. It is made to help a person with suicidal thoughts to manage his mental health by himself.
Outcome
Due to the tricky subject and to other complications during the production, the product could not be tested before the launch. About two years later, an assessment was conducted to evaluate its success.
« Overall, suicide.ca is considered helpful regarding its design and the themes which are offered. As for the pages or sections to improve, we notice that the section « My Tools », the self-assessment questionnaires and the library of professionnal ressources seem to be a problem (ie: hard to find). The content is very rich and it can hinder the navigation, especially with an audience who is experimenting a crisis at the moment they consult the website. »
Assessment of the implementation of the digital strategy in suicide prevention, and its effect on the short term (June, 2022)
Apart from these minor problems, Suicide.ca is considered safe, helpful and effective for the suicide prevention. The website and app generate a good traffic, as well as the chat service.
The client (AQPS) is satisfied. They continue to follow their global strategy and are planning further developments to improve the suicide prevention.