Designing a Community-Based App to Support Emotional Well-Being for Mastectomy Patients

Role

UX Designer

Skills

Micro-interaction, Emotional Design, Generative AI

Timeline

Spring 2023, 3 weeks

Team

2 Designers, 2 Researchers (course project)
While physical pain may be treatable with medical interventions, emotional pain cannot be cured in the same way. This is where the Masthead Bra App comes in. Our team developed the app in 4 weeks, using native mobile capabilities and micro-interactions to address the emotional needs of our customers. By incorporating users’ stories, we created a personalized "emotional" design, allowing them to express themselves openly in a shared gallery.

Project Challenge

How might we help support Masthead customers beyond their purchase of a Masthead product

CONTEXT

Why Design?

Breast cancer patients often experience emotional distress—such as depression, fear, and mood disorders—after surgery, with many facing multiple symptoms. Distress is increasingly recognized as a major factor affecting cancer patients' quality of life (Saeedi-Saedi et al., 2015). While Masthead Bra supports physical recovery, it lacks resources for emotional care.

Hypothesis

If Masthead can provide customers with a safe space to express their emotions and needs, then customers can feel cared for and supported.

RESEARCH

Mapping the Experience

Our research showed that:
  • Masthead's customer interaction ends once the product is received, indicating a lack of post-purchase support.
  • Breast surgery patients often face ongoing emotional struggles at home, suggesting a need for post-surgery services.
  • Mapping the Masthead bra purchase process highlighted confusion, suggesting a community-based app could help by offering shared information and support.
Click to see my research artifacts
DESIGN PROCESS

Insights to Solution: Ideating Various Ways to Provide Care and Support

Using our value hypothesis, we conducted several rounds of Crazy 8 and reverse assumptions focused on connecting patients with other stakeholders and helping patients experience a smoother recovery by tracking drain logs and providing informative answers to their questions. We created 4 storyboards illustrating potential experiences for Masthead customers and patients, used them for idea testing and validation, and iterated on the ideas based on feedback.
Feedback indicated that the chatbot and AR fitting felt distant to users, while the AI-drawing design tool and community feature received positive responses despite some confusion and safety concerns. We used these insights to iterate and improve our designs.
AI-drawing Design Tool and AR Fitting Wireframing
Community Feature and AI Chatbot Wireframing
Final Solution

Community-Based Gallery: Sharing Your Stories and Journeys

🔍 Insight:
Patients feel disconnected and lack a space to share or ask questions.
🔑 Solution
A community-based gallery that allows the patients to share their stories and journeys using the AI-generated drawing. The aim is to provide external support from the community aspect and a sense of belongingness. Here, you can share your own story or send love letters to those who inspired you or echoed with you.
Final Solution

Draw Your Emotion: Transforming Stories into Custom Illustrations with AI

🔍 Insight:
After surgery, patients often struggle with ongoing emotional challenges like anxiety, isolation, and adjusting to changes in their bodies. Without adequate support, these feelings can intensify, making recovery more difficult and affecting their overall quality of life.
🔑 Solution
By leveraging AI technology, this feature enables patients to transform their personal stories into customized illustrations. The images can be printed on Masthead products, allowing them to feel more confident and empowered.

Expressing Oneself using Gen AI

We explored various ways for users to express themselves, including writing, drawing, and even singing. Users have the freedom to choose the method that makes them feel most comfortable.

My takeaway

Evolving our design hypothesis

In the early stages, we struggled to turn research posters into actionable designs, initially focusing only on synthesizing ideas and getting stuck on the concept of a "community" without a clear direction. As we continued brainstorming, however, we uncovered more effective ways for patients to express themselves, which gave us clarity. This led us to a more purposeful decision: designing a story-sharing platform that encourages patients to share their experiences. This deeper understanding shaped our final design choices.

Open to risks and failures

One of the biggest takeaway from this project was identifying values and being open to risks and failures. There were many times that we were unsure how to proceed, but ideating and embracing new ideas also helped us. By focusing on the values we wanted to deliver to Masthead's customers, we generated ideas that aligned with those goals. Additionally, embracing risks and potential failures allowed us to push boundaries.

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