Interview Summary 1

Interviews on proxy users

In the interview section, we found it difficult to define and reach out to our ideal target audience, who are suffering from depression due to the negative impact on social media. As a result of that, we interviewed the proxy users who have the habit of using social media and may experience negative feelings of it. We also interviewed student councillors to receive feedback on our topic and ask for further suggestion on our solution.

We've tested the users with the Prototype 1 which includes our original idea of connecting clients and therapists.

Target interviewees: People experience negative impact on social media

Total number of interviewees: 5 people

Output: Better understand the need of our target users

Questions

User background : State the reason why they’re the target audience

Q1 Time spent using social media daily/weekly (frequency of use)

Q2 What are your reasons for using social media?

Q3 How does social media affect your quality of life?

Q4 Do you often see/receive negative information on social media?

Q5 How do you overcome the negative feelings towards social media?

Introducing our original solution:

• Testing on depression level
• Give results and suggestions on the therapists
• Diary about social media activities
• Message box that communicate directly to the therapists

Q6 Do you think the app is helpful for you?

Q7 Will you use the app?

Q8 What elements of the app can be improved?

Q9 Will you let the therapists access your diary in spite of privacy concerns

Q10 Do you have any further suggestions, such as improve people's motivation of using the app?

Interview feedback

Participant 1

Participant 1 use social media frequently and is sensitive about the post, it is possible that Participant 1 give out advice for other sensitive people.

Participant 1 use social media approx. 3 hours a day, mainly on instagram for browsing friends stories and Facebook to watch short videos.

The reason Participant 1 use social media is to

1. Keep up with the world and mainly peer influence
2. Looking for inspiration of life

• The yoga teacher is the role model since she share her life from struggling to positive influencing and this inspire Participant 1 to learn to be a better self

Participant 1 feel mainly negative of using social media, since its easy to compare with people's filtered life and compare with friends or strangers. Sometimes feeling inferiority when seeing your friends hanging out. however, sometimes feels positive if see someone inspiring.

There is not much negative information Participant 1 encountered on social media, mostly positive side, since people don't post negative post, its only Participant 1's thoughts of being negative.

Participant 1 usually watch drama or talk to close friends and family about the feelings towards the post to overcome the negative impact.

Our solution is helpful for Participant 1, however the therapists function is not really helpful for Participant 1.

Participant 1 will use the app since recording feelings is crucial for Participant 1.

Suggestions towards the app:

1. Add build-in story in the app to give users more information.
2. People can choose whether they want to share the diary with people or keep it yourself.
3. Good user design can give incentive for people to maintain habit of recording daily diaries.

Participant 2

Participant 2 has previous experience of depression and have face-to-face treatment, thus, Participant 2 would be able to give out suggestions towards whether the app is useful for people suffering from depression.

Participant 2 use social media approx. 3 hours per day, including 1 hour on Instagram for friends posts and 2 hours on WeChat about subscriptions and moments. There are 3 reasons for Participant 2 for using social media: chat to connect with people, reply on others posts and the source of news (either finance, cultural blog and fashion news).

Social media has a positive influence for Participant 2 on understanding and receiving latest and useful information.

When Participant 2 is depressed,

1. the frequency of using social media will increase
2. its easier to feel that other peoples life is better
3. Feel more depressed when browsing social media post
4. Likely to post more depressed post about life being imperfect and change profile photo

Participant 2 doesn't feel better after posting negative posts. Either apply medicines or exercise to overcome the negative feelings.

The app might be helpful about connecting to therapists. May use the part of connecting with the therapists, however, writing diaries are not helpful for Participant 2.

Suggestions towards the app:

1. Include help line in the app and connect with Brisbane Royal hospital.
2. If the therapists are students, there might have some concerns about giving unqualified suggestions. Participant 2 cannot accept the therapists as students.
3. The therapists have to sign privacy contract to protect the users' rights.
4. Diaries may be useful for people who are blue and may not be useful for people who have mental illness.
5. Diverse Editing function and different colour background / diary format / font style, paper texture may motivate people of using the app (instagram-video, story, post / Wechat - text, photo)

Future suggestions:

1. Collaborate with the clinic
2. Verbal communication with therapists

Participant 3

As a previous person suffering from depression, Participant 3 share about how will the depression people react, which is helpful for our project.

Participant 3 spent approx. 2 hours per day on social media, mainly on Instagram, line and facebook. Participant 3's reason of using social media is to have fun and have fun, however, Participant 3 will only follow close friends' updates.

Social media affect Participant 3's life positively, since many social media platforms respond about the situation of the negative influence from social media, which people cannot see the number of 'Likes'.

Participant 3 used to write diaries with friends, which increased the motivation of recording daily. In Participant 3's experience, most of the people having depression are not likely to share with people since they felt it uncomfortable to bring trouble to friends, however, writing exchange diaries with friends may help people from this situation.

Participant 3 have defined 3 core features for Participant 3:

1. Videos that make people happy
2. Sad music for people to listen to
3. Official blog about how to relieve bad mood, people can comment on the solution

Feedback from tutors

We have received feedback from tutors about inviting actual therapists might be hard to get in contact and to achieve, thus, we planned to replace the professional therapists to uni psychological students who are willing to give out advices for people who have depression.

Participant 4

Participant 4 use social media frequently and would give out general feedback on people's attitude on social media.

Participant 4 spent 3 hours on social media, mainly on Instagram, Facebook, youtube and Line. Participant 4 mainly use social media for:

1. Work: look for articles that can posted for work
2. Boring: To kill time
3. Catch up with others life

Social media both positive and negative influence on Participant 4's life: Positive

1. See what others are doing and improve self
2. Reflect on the decisions Negative
3. Not confident due to people's appearance and body shape
4. People look perfect on social media
5. Envy of others hanging out, afraid of not be engage with friends

Participant 4 has established another private account for self to document private thoughts.

Participant 4 thinks the app is useful but needs to differentiate with other similar platform:

1. Organised outline (date/weather/stickers/emoji)
2. Both picture and text format
3. Set timing and notification (ex, Its time to write your diary of the day!!)
4. Therapists function can be optional for people
5. Create anonymous platform for people to share their idea
6. Instead of letting students to be the professional therapists, the app can add a section 'Find a Stranger to talk' which involved in the unprofessional psychology students

Participant 5

Participant 5 use social media frequently, and can give out useful suggestions on the function and aesthetic on the product.

Participant 5 spent 3 hours a day on social media, including Instagram, WeChat and Facebook. The reason Participant 5 use social media was catching up with friends latest news and connecting with the world. Social media affect Participant 5 life on both physical and mental side, the short-sighted got more severe and sometimes may care too much of what people think and act about self and cares about the likes and comments of own posts which may cause anxiety.

Participant 5 will self adjust to get used to the effect social media brings. People who may not be able to adjust themselves need the app to record their emotions.

Core features:

1. Community include social workers and therapists
2. Anonymous forum where people can encourage each other

Suggestions towards the app:

1. Different icon represent different emotions
2. Document the change of emotion of the day
3. Less text in the diary

Further suggestions:

1. Can visit Pinterest to look for inspiration of the design of the app

Evaluation on Interviews on proxy users

We received many useful feedback on the 5 interviews, which it is highly possible to apply some concepts in our future product.

• General potential concepts includes:

1. Anonymous platform where people can either share their experiences and browse build-in stories
2. Diverse Editing function (text, images, emoji, stickers)
3. Different colour background, diary format, font style and paper texture
4. Set timing and notification
5. Create a section of 'Find a Stranger to talk' which involved in the unprofessional psychology students
6. Different icon represent different emotions
7. Document the change of emotion of the day

We have two design methods after the interviews:

1. Mainly cooperate with clinic and provide an app that connect the therapists and users, however the users in this case will be people who suffered from depression or severe mental illness.

Potential Concepts for clinic idea:

• Include help line in the app and connect with Brisbane Royal hospital.

• The therapists sign the privacy contract to protect the users' rights.

2. Diary-based app that offers people a platform to express themselves, and the target users would more likely to be our proxy users, who is more likely to self adjust from the negative influence.