Mental Health Resource Accessibility User Research

Is accessibility to mental health resources on the University of Michigan campus limited?

Problem

The Plan

Informed Consent

Data Logging

Reflections

Tools
Figma

Research Process Focus
Usability Testing

Team
Solo

Attending the University of Michigan and simply being on the campus means dealing with a great deal of stress due to the incredibly intelligent and competitive atmosphere. Many students and even faculty here struggle with mental health issues. Using students as my population, I aimed to evaluate accessibility to mental health resources on campus. I specifically focused on the University of Michigan’s "Resources for Stress and Mental Health" website and how easy it is for users to explore and access mental health resources through it.

I began by creating a structured plan for usability testing, including the main objective, specific aspects to test, usability test objectives, and inclusion/exclusion criteria for participants, so I would be organized and prepared for each usability test that I was going to conduct.

Facilitator Guide

I then created a facilitator guide, editing a template from Nielsen Norman Group, that I could utilize when conducting each usability test to maintain structure and focus, as well as a lack of bias throughout. Most importantly, the guide includes follow-up questions for me to ask participants after they complete each task, and comprehensive follow-up questions after they have completed the entire test.

One of the most important aspects of any user research process is to have participants’ consent before conducting any interviews with them, so I created a detailed informed consent, editing a template from Nielsen Norman Group, for research participation form for my usability testing.

This is the most significant, insightful aspect of my usability testing process. First, I created a data logging form template, with a key for various codes at the top, and then mini-templates for each task, including the scenario, success measures, estimated time range, success rating, task steps, and screens (of the website that is being tested). I, then, of course, conducted my usability tests, utilizing the facilitator guide and the data logging form. The participants for my usability tests were my peers, who I asked to complete a series of tasks and recorded the results. These results were then analyzed to find user pain points and improvements , regarding its usability, for the University of Michigan’s “Resources for Stress and Mental Health” website.

Conclusions

This usability testing was crucial in my research as many important findings resulted from it. Primarily, I found that the website overall is not usable, thus greatly hindering accessibility to mental health resources, as this is one of the main resources available for students to explore and receive mental health support on campus. All of the users we tested seemed to be overwhelmed and stressed by the abundance of information presented on the site, and further, how unorganized and aesthetically unpleasing it is. As a further result of this overwhelming amount of information, several users spent too much time trying to find certain resources, eventually became too frustrated and exhausted, and evidently wanted to give up and leave the site. Overall, I have come to the conclusion that a major alteration to the interface, particularly focusing on reducing and organizing the information presented, is definitely necessary to make this website more usable, and thus, improve the accessibility to mental health resources on campus.

When reflecting on the usability testing stage of my research study, there are a few things I would have done differently if I had more time. I would have more comprehensively edited the facilitator guide template from Nielsen Norman Group, so that it better fit my research topic and usability testing objectives. The main thing that I would have changed though is to conduct at least one more usability test (I did four, and I believe five would have made it more complete), and recruit a more diverse group of participants. Many of the participants came from similar backgrounds. For one, all of the participants were undergraduate students; I could have picked a couple of graduate students or faculty members to be participants in my study. I think it would have been more interesting and precise to have taken a bigger and more diverse group of usability test participants. However, despite these things, I still feel as though my usability testing provided extended knowledge and a strong sense of credibility to my research study.

Project Context

Project Type
User experience research for SI 422: Needs Assessment and Usability Evaluation at UofM

Role
UX Researcher

Timeline
Fall 2023 (November 2023 - December 2023) — 2 weeks