Designing for a better Mental Health
During the last semester i have been working on the topic of mental health. Why there are so many people who don’t get the help they need and how design solutions can help. The topic of mental health is highly relevant in today’s world. Mental illnesses affect almost every 4th person today. Reasons I found during my research why mentally ill people do not seek the necessary help:
- Fears of judgment
- Stigmata
- Lack of awareness and understanding
- Shortage of slots
- Unaffordability
- Limited access to mental health services
Furthermore, during my reschersche, i looked into possible ways of using design as a solution to this problem. The goal of these approaches is often destigmatization and education, gamefication, as well as providing seamless access to professional help and other self-help tools. I came across the following design approaches that are already being applied:
- Educational campaigns
- Books
- Exhebitions
- Game
- digital solutions like self-help apps
This semester, I want to delve even deeper into the digital solutions in order to finde the right topic for my master thesis. I also would like to conduct a questionar to gane more insights about my target group an thair behaviour as well as what could be benificiall for them. I also need to finde a clear Idea of what my project could look like in order to produce a Prototype.