Mind+

Developing a blueprint for an online counseling platform serving Taiwanese adults.

Mental health is a growing concern in Taiwan, and Far EasTone Telecom (FET), one of the country’s major mobile networks, saw an opportunity to make a meaningful impact by leveraging their 5G connectivity.

In collaboration with the Institute of Design and Far Eastern Group’s innovation team, we spent six weeks in Taiwan, deeply immersed in research to create a product blueprint—outlining the key building blocks that would enable FET to carry the work forward long after our engagement ended.

skills

Design research

Design Strategy

Analysis and synthesis

Journey mapping

Concept development

Storytelling

Figma

time
Jun - Jul 2024
(6 weeks)

role

design strategist - analysis, synthesis, and storytelling

tools

figma
miro
whimsical

project type
design research and strategy

team

Samantha Chandra (design strategist)
Vanessa Chang (design strategist)
Bhavani Prasad (design strategist)
Martin Thaler (supervising faculty)
Design mentors in FEG DRIVE

“The project scope was extraordinarily aggressive and challenging, and the team did an outstanding job executing it. I am seriously impressed.”

WHAT OUR PARTNERS LOVED

— Jeff Hsu, Chief Innovation Officer at DRIVE Strategy Group and Board of Directors at Far EastTone Telecom (FET)

— Joyce, Product Owner at Far EasTone Telecom (FET)

"I really love this blueprint. Everything is so clear, even though it's complex. We'll hang it in our office."
This project lays the groundwork for a new online counseling platform for Far EastTone.

FarEasTone (FET) is a telecommunication companys and the third-largest mobile network in Taiwan. FET has successfully launched a health ecosystem in 2020 during the pandemic, and is now looking to expand this ecosystem into the mental health space.


PROJECT BACKGROUND

Depression has affected over 1.5 million Taiwanese, and the number is rising.

THE PROBLEM

As guests in the country, it was crucial for us to understand the contextual landscape and the domain we were designing in.

One of our first exercises was conducting thorough secondary and field research to map out Taiwan’s mental health ecosystem.

What we found: Taiwan's mental health system is fragmented, with multiple 'front doors' that make navigating services confusing—especially for those unfamiliar with them, which is a large number of people.


In a place with low mental health awareness, what would it take to create an effective online mental health experience?

RESEARCH AND DESIGN PROCESS

Mind+ is a concept for a telecounseling platform designed for working adults in Taiwan, with four key defining elements.

We defined our strategy based on the driving insights we discovered during the research process.

OUR SOLUTION

💡 What is a "driving insight"? We defined a driving insight as a fundamental truth about the people we’re designing for— something that reveals a key need, behavior, or motivation. It’s what truly matters and what should be focused on to create solutions that are meaningful and impactful.

As part of our final deliverable, we handed off 6 design principles to the FET product team…

FINAL DELIVERABLES

These design principles are meant to be a set of values that act as a compass for the solution, the
guideposts that keep FET’s design team on the same path as they move through the design process.

These design principles helped us a lot in making decisions when prioritizing features for the final blueprint!

...and packaged our final recommendations in a product blueprint containing our strategy, prioritized offerings, and design guidelines.
We also equipped the client team with some frameworks that can aid in their design thinking.

The client asked for us to leave frameworks and logic that they can repurpose for other user groups, and the ‘6 Stages of User Journey’ and the ‘6 Barriers to Counseling’ proved to be sticky concepts throughout our conversations with the client..

How do we communicate our blueprint and tools to FET's leadership without getting into too much details?

STORYTELLING

We conveyed our recommendations and insights through storytelling, using a persona we’d developed throughout our engagement with the client. To bring our blueprint to life, we prototyped a demo and guided our audience through the user journey, illustrating key scenarios and touchpoints.

We also point out what key element is and design principles are at play to illustrate how all of the building blocks we provided can be used to design for the solution.

Note: We had to make it clear to the client—these weren’t final designs for Mind+. They were a way to illustrate the bigger strategy and principles. The real product design would need deeper testing and research by their team.

🙆‍♀️

Interested in the full case study? Please feel free to reach out to learn about this work and my process in more detail.

We also equipped the client team with some frameworks that can aid in their design thinking.

The client asked for us to leave frameworks and logic that they can repurpose for other user groups, and the ‘6 Stages of User Journey’ and the ‘6 Barriers to Counseling’ proved to be sticky concepts throughout our conversations with the client..

Project photo gallery

Our team spent 6 weeks in Taiwan for this project, hosted by the lovely DRIVE team at Far Eastern Group. It was an unforgettable experience where I learned a lot as a designer and as a human being :) Thank you to everyone I met in this trip!

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@ 2023 Samantha Chandra