Assist
Anisa Al Raisi
The field of mental health has seen many changes in the past decades, be it from the shift in its approach from isolating the mentally ill to focusing on community healing, or the major change in people's attitudes and prejudices towards mental disorders and the seeking of treatment. However, certain important aspects of the mental health industry such as supporting resources like skills worksheets and patient safety plans continue to be overlooked. In addition to that, these existing resources lack an aesthetic value, which as a result makes them less helpful and leads patients to utilize them less in their recovery. My aim in this project was to research how different design approaches and elements can influence human emotion and use my findings in redesigning existing mental health resources.
I created the website Assist to provide a platform that can house different tools that patients suffering from depression and anxiety disorders can use to aid their recovery. Assist consists of an AI that checks in on the patient's current well-being and progress with therapy. Additionally, it helps patients with daily journaling and encourages the use of helpful skills through several prompts. Finally, it provides a new approach to skills worksheets as it creates a more interactive learning approach that deviates away from the basic print handouts.