The first Bilingual e-Therapy Platform In the Middle East
Overview
Ayadi is a bilingual newcomer to the online therapy space headquartered in Kuweit. It is a woman-led company and the first startup in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that connects users with thousands of qualified therapists via video, audio, or chat sessions.
The Ask
The prevalence of mental health issues in the area is increasing due to global events like wars, pandemics, and natural disasters. However, stigma and accessibility barriers often deter people from seeking help. The main request was to develop an app MVP that provides simple tools for users to connect with qualified psychologists and therapists based on their preferences. Additionally, the app should offer secure virtual therapy sessions through its own network.
My Role
In my role, I collaborated closely with the client and the engineering team. I was tasked with hiring a designer and content writers proficient in Arabic, as the application required bilingual capabilities. Additionally, I liaised with the UI team, providing them with the primary brand guidelines and establishing the design system for the UI designer to adhere to, ensuring consistent branding across the app and any forthcoming designs.
Adopting a Liniear Process
The Design Strategy
Create a digital platform where people can find qualified therapists and book sessions confidentially.
On the other hand, we need to create a platform for therapist to manage their patients’ info and schedules, and market their business.
-Log in or Sign up
-Primary Evaluation
-Search for therapists, and checked --for related details
-Book a session
-Payment with card
-Join and connect with the community
-Get notifications about upcoming -sessions and news.
-Data privacy
-Linguistic clarity
-Easy to use
-Accessible
Consistency across all pages
-Quick jumping into function
-Improved search and sorting filter
-Instant notification for fast -communication
-Mobile apps - both IOS and Android platforms.
-Computers
-Tablets
-Smart TV
People from age 15 to 65 seeking mental health support
Therapists looking to expand their network, and get more visibility.
-Internet
-Smart phones
Listen
With the lack of data and
local competitor in the region, we’ve decided to run surveys with the help of Practitioners, students, employees, and group members of some communities and associations.
Conducting a market analysis was also a crucial element in order to thoroughly understand and identify the optimal options and features to incorporate into the MVP app.
Research key takeaways
What they said
- I prefer not tell anyone about my mental concerns.
- I want o have as much information as possible about my therapist.
- I want to be able to contact my therapist any time anywhere.
- I want to Gain new experience working on a variety of situations, and expand my Client base.
- I want to have a digital exposure and grow my business.
- I want o manage my patient data and have everything in one platform.
What they need
- The ability to communicate with the therapist anonymously.
- The ability to learn about the therapist history and other patients review.
- The flexibility of schedules and geographic location.
- The ability to have better exposure.
- The flexibility and time management of
their practice. - The ability to manage their patient’s schedule and data,
in a safe platform.
Learn
For this stage of the case study, we will focus on the patient journey. A separate case study will be conducted for the therapist ERP web app.
Articulating What We Know About the Users
The user flow - The patient
After gathering information about the user's needs, I developed a process based on the user's requirements, outlining the steps that the patient will take when searching for a suitable therapist and scheduling a session.
Respond
With better understanding of the patient user flow, I moved on to sketching a low fidelity wireframe of the mobile app keeping in
mind the two core journeys for the patient:
1.Find a therapist
2.Book a session
3.Connect with community
Sketching Explorations
The Design
Inspired from the brand guideline, we moved on
to high fidelity prototype, and created an interactive flow to be tested on many types
of users.
Sign up / log in / onboarding
Whether it is a sign up or a log in, we’ve optimized the process for the user and gave full control on choosing the desired service.
Choose a therapist and book a session
We ensured to give the user full control to choose and filter Therapist by time, price, language, gender... etc
Payment , Community , Chat and Many more screens
Testing
After refining the design style, we created an interactive prototype ready for usability testing on different types of users.
Observations
After Testing and receiving feedback from the users. we defined five major issues that were of high priority.
- The patient need to have more control over their credentials.
- As users find it hard to select the drop down, I decided to divide each credential in a separate page for more choices and ease of usability.
- Add a field for symptoms, as some users will need to describe their symptoms their own way.
- The users mentioned that they got surprised by landing to the therapist lists. a more specified CTA will help the user be aware of what is coming next.
- Add more details about the therapists for better credibility.
Iteration
We've decided to split the information input pages and allow the user to skip a step if they dont wish to provide a specific information.
Iteration 2 - The filter menu of the therapist list page was confusing and needed more refinement
Key Learning
As a designer who speaks Arabic, I felt confident to take on a project that involved creating an Arabic version of an application. However, I soon discovered that there were several challenges that my team and I had to overcome. Here are some of the things that I learned along the way:
Designing for right-to-left (RTL) languages is not just about mirroring the user interface (UI) or translating the content directly. Doing so can result in usability issues. It's crucial to keep in mind the different cultural values and sensitivities of users, as certain shapes, images, and information may be perceived differently among different cultures.It's also important to provide multilingual search functionality, as even Arabic-speaking users may prefer to use certain features in English. This helps to ensure a better user experience overall.
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