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SoundMind Case Study

Creating An Interactive Central Resource For Users Struggling With PTSD

Project Overview

The app, SoundMind, was created for users struggling with PTSD and other mental health problems. My team and I made it through the investment rounds and will be on the iOS App Store in January 2021!

Problem: Many people globally struggle with PTSD and mental health.
Solution: We create a centralized hub for users struggling with mental health and help them improve their progress by tracking their mood, listening to binaural beats, and through brain exercise games.
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Tools: Adobe XD, Cinema 4D, Photoshop, Rotato, Principle, Flowmapp
Duration:  6+ Months

What is SoundMind?

SoundMind is one of the only mental health apps committed to advancing the field of thanatosonics, memory rehabilitation, neuroplasticity and culturally competent meditation through clinically-validated and first-hand research on these fields of study and our product. SoundMind Inc. strives to provide an individualized, virtual mental health resource through our interactive mobile application. The app focuses on three main platforms: Music Therapy, Memory Rehabilitation Games, and Mindfulness Meditation.
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SoundMind's research team continues to conduct research in partnership with prestigious research institutions, led by neuroscientists, ethnomusicologists, psychologists, and behavioral scientists in the artificial intelligence field.

Meet the SoundMind Family

Meet the SoundMind family. I created each character to target our main user base - a nurse, a soldier, and a general ubiquitous, non-racial character. We used a pink character to make race ambiguous.

The challenges we had with this character was rendering the character every time there was a background color change. To solve this, we created an object buffer to mask him for transparent PNG images. Also the team needed multiple poses to choose from to use throughout the app, website, and social media. we created these characters to make the mobile app more interactive, and have the character guide the user to better their mental health.

Creating the Characters

Characters were created using Cinema 4D and manually rigged with skeleton, and properly weighted for each rig. Some challenges were creating cartoon hair and embedding the texture onto the material itself. All renders used a third party render engine - in this case, Octane and Arnold were used. The first batch of characters were created in Arnold, until I started GPU rendering in Octane for the second batch.

Low Fidelity Prototyping

We started low-fidelity prototyping on Figma for collaboration. I liked having some kind of visual element for the music player. We also identified the main features to place on the navigation tab bar on the bottom of the screen.

High Fidelity iPhone Screenshots

For the medium to high-fidelity iOS prototype, I wanted to focus on the main feature: the music player. I wanted to have the focus revolve around the user's mood and the accessibility to tracking the user's mood. The rapid response can be accessed throughout the app in case the user is having a panic attack, or need to contact emergency services.

SoundMind App Features

Improve Your Mood
Relax More
Nurture Your Attention
Notify Immediately
Refocus
Improve Your Mood
Through mood tracking, improve your mood by prioritizingyour problems, fears, and concerns. Recognize emotions as they come anddiscover your voice.
Relax More
Learn to sit back and relax with soothing music that willallow you to improve respiration, lower your blood pressure and reduce yourheart rate.
Nurture Your Attention
With brain exercises, improve your attention, concentration and focus, and the ability to think critically in tough situations.
Notify Immediately
Through the rapid response feature, immediately notify your location or wellbeing to loved ones should you have an anxiety attack, traumatic episode, or trigger. Simultaneously, listen to sounds best associated to calm yourself down.
Refocus
Sharpen your mind to refocus on what really matters through binaural frequencies that improve focus, memory, and sleep.
Free Update
Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia

Game Series & Research

Treasure Hunt
Word Match
Build a World
Brick Breaker
Kart Racer
Cup Swap
Treasure Hunt
Logical Memory Performance: Frontal Lobe
Word Match
Verbal Memory Impairment: Left Medial Temporal Lobe, specifically, the Hippocampus
Build a World
Depression and Anxiety: Prefrontal Cortex, Amygdala, Hippocampus
Brick Breaker
Concentration: Prefrontal Cortex and Parietal Cortex
Kart Racer
Increased Cerebral Cortex Activity: Right Prefrontal Cortex
Cup Swap
Selective Attention: Lateral Prefrontal Cortex and PosteriorParietal Cortex

Home Screen Iterations

1st Prototype

2nd Prototype

Final Home

Onboarding Screens

1st Onboarding Screen

2nd Onboarding Screen

3rd Onboarding Screen

Key Learnings from User Testing

Users did not want the rapid response feature to dial 911. Instead, we directed users to a specified hotline through the onboarding phase. Rather than calling 911, user can dial the Suicide Hotline, or a PTSD hotline.

We originally had 30 questions for the user to answer in order to determine the best experience, and identify their mental health category. After long talks with our researchers, we finally condensed the questions to 10.

Layout of the home screen was important for the user for quick actions. Users wanted the 3 most important features within the first glance of the home screen: music composer, brain exercises, and journal.

Rapid response needed to be on every major page on the app. Used a modal screen - instead of a full page emergency screen.

Our Final Prototype: adobe.ly/2X1ynus
‍SoundMind Website: soundmind.app
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