Supporting teens through life with mentorship.
Product Design
Role
High Fidelity iOS experience
Deliverable
Designed UX and UI flows ready for development.
Summary
6 months
Timeline
The Problem Space
Links’ mission is to end the youth mental health crisis by preventing 1% of hospitalizations. They plan to achieve this by creating a new platform with younger, more relatable mentors who offer flexible coaching to teenagers.
Currently, there is a lack of licensed providers. Teenagers often feel frustrated with therapy because they cannot relate to their older therapists, and don't appreciate the rigidity of a one-hour schedule. Parents struggle to find therapists for their kids and aren't sure if therapy is worth the investment.
To address these issues, Link aims to provide younger mentors (between 19 and 26 years old) who are more relatable to teenagers and can offer a flexible coaching approach instead of traditional therapy. The goal is to create a preventative layer of care and augment existing tools for those already in therapy. Link wants to make the whole experience engaging and enjoyable for teenagers.
Finding the right connection
Link pairs mentees and mentors together based on similar goals, interests, and struggles.
Mentors and mentees get suggestions of who we think they would get along with, but at the end of the day, we think it’s important for them to choose each other.
Communication
Video calls and texting through the app are how they stay connected.
Mentors can schedule calls, set communication preferences, and receive reminders to follow up so no one is ever left on read.
Get to know your Mentee
Mentors mentioned struggling with conversation topics during calls.
So, we created a way to facilitate the conversation. These are question cards to break the ice or navigate deeper subjects of conversation.
Question Prompts
Select questions to spark up conversations.
If you are on a video call or messaging and your conversation needs a boost, then you can select questions from different levels of depth. Icebreakers for light and easy questions, or “Get Deep” for questions that will develop a deeper connection.
Safety is prioirtized
Mentors are guided on what to do in an emergency with a mentee.
We needed a way to ensure that teens are safe in the event of a physical or mental health emergency and that our mentors were clear on what steps to take.
Dealing with a crisis
If a teen is in crisis, mentors are guided through steps to alert parents and get professional help as quickly as possible.
Here we see both views from the mentee and mentor. In this case, David (our mentee) is on a call and has threatened to harm himself or another person. Our mentor is guided on which steps to take and suggestions on what to say through the app.
Post Call Checkin
We needed a way to check the pulse on the relationships developing and how teens felt about it.
Our check-in feature encourages processing emotions about how the call went.
Managing relationships
To ensure a positive experience, teens are encouraged to fill out post-call check-ins.
They can fill out as much as they want and this information is kept and sent to the link supervisor. If a mentee is having a negative experience it will be easy for us to know and reach out for further steps. This way we can keep up with how the relationships are developing from the teens perspective.