Blume—An Anxiety Treatment App
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), a widely-used therapy for anxiety disorders, has the highest treatment success rate. Blume is an integrated communication platform to employ CBT strategies between patients and their psychologists.
During treatment using CBT methods, patients track cognitive patterns and behaviors. This is traditionally done with pen and paper, creating an obstacle for patients used to taking notes and tracking personal data in digital environments.
As patients track their thoughts and behaviors throughout the course of treatment, they start to understand and alter harmful thought patterns. I used clinical research to create evidence-based visualizations for patients to track their progress.
I interviewed psychologists and learned they want to monitor patients’ progress between sessions from a desktop computer. I created a secure online system for doctors to add, customize, and monitor patient’s weekly homework.
After user testing with psychologists I learned that doctors frequently reuse the same tasks with multiple patients. I added a ‘quick add’ feature to enable tasks to be reused and modified to suit individual patient needs without burdening psychologists with creating complex new assignments.
My initial hypothesis was that a messaging based app would help patients complete homework. Academic and clinical research, as well as interviews supported my theory. It wasn’t until user testing that I realized it wasn’t messaging that was helpful, it was notifications.
I re-worked tasks, using notifications as reminders, and integrated simple recognizable patterns for data entry. This solution spoke to my research, and increased task malleability for doctors while eliminating frustration and impatience in users.
CBT rests on teaching patients to link behaviors to negative thought patterns, so they can make informed behavior changes. I created a customizable desktop dashboard to empower patients to modify visualizations and draw their own insights.
Research, interviews, user-journeys, wireframing, and rounds of user testing led me to create an application that balanced customization and simplicity to maximize use, and ultimately support doctors and patients to overcome anxiety. If you want more process, visit my website!
