London design studio Special Projects has teamed up with clinical psychologists to develop SlowMo, a mental health app for people experiencing mental illness that will be piloted by the UK’s National Health Service. is.
Designed to work alongside in-person therapy, the SlowMo app allows users to identify and record unhelpful “fast thinking” patterns and uses animated bubbles to slow them down. can do.
The program has been in development over the past five years, led by clinical psychologist researchers. amy hardy and her team at King’s College London. The special project came on board after a controlled trial to hone user experience, strategy and branding.
Psychotic episodes commonly include confused thinking, hallucinations, and delusions, where people see, hear, or believe things that are not real.
The main function of this app is to help users monitor and recall these unhelpful thoughts. By creating a gray “worry bubble”, users can identify and name their thoughts. This bubble will be scaled to represent the severity of the worry you are feeling at that moment.
Later, you can discuss these concerns with your therapist. But for now, the app offers users an opportunity to address it on their own, with prompts that encourage them to reframe their perspective and consider factors that may be causing their fast thinking patterns.
“How would things look if you felt good?” the app asks. or “Isn’t it about them and not you?”
“Paranoia is often associated with quick thinking habits, such as jumping to conclusions,” Special Projects co-founder Clara Guggero told Dezeen. “SlowMo’s ‘slow down’ process provides patients with cues to notice new information and encourages them to form ‘safer thoughts’ to reframe their thinking.”
These safer thoughts take the form of rainbow-colored bubbles containing statements extracted from tips that resonate with users. They might read, “It’s just a coincidence” or “It’s not about me.”
“The process of ‘slowing down’ may take a little time at first, but eventually it becomes a habit and the user is less likely to jump to conclusions about worrying thoughts,” says Guggello. he said.
Beyond this feature, the SlowMo app also includes content such as interactive activities for therapy sessions, as well as a “toolkit” of other resources for users.
The special project designed the app’s architecture based on interviews with people with experience of mental illness. This helped the studio understand how to evolve the app by prioritizing positive interactions and emergency deceleration features.
“We wanted to strike a careful balance between positive, optimistic interactions and authentic dignity,” says Alexa Muench, senior designer for Special Projects.
The interviews also led the studio to prioritize transparency and data security in its design, as concerns about being tracked and tracked online are so strong among people who experience mental illness. .
As a result, the app is designed to store all personal content locally on the patient’s device, allowing users to actively choose what information they want to share with their therapist each time they sync their data.
For example, you may have recorded four thoughts that concern you, but you only want to share two with your therapist.
Additionally, a quarter of people with severe mental illness do not own a smartphone, and some may not want to take it with them in public, so a physical copy with tips as an alternative to an app is available. Playing cards are also available.
Users can keep their cards in their pockets and peek at them to avoid falling into worrying thought patterns.
The SlowMo team has secured £1.3m funding from the Wellcome Foundation to develop the app beyond its current clickable prototype format and test it across three National Health Service (NHS) trusts. The plan is to eventually offer it to the entire NHS.
The research team hopes that SlowMo will help overcome the limitations of current drug and talk therapies. They say these are often less accessible to marginalized groups and have poorer outcomes and compliance.
“In contrast to the fast-paced approach taken by many technology companies, the team at King’s College London is focused on doing the right thing in a thorough and evidence-based way.” said Adrian Westaway, co-founder of Special Projects.
“The depth of our research and clinical work, combined with our focus on inclusivity and addressing the digital divide, makes this an important collaboration for us to be a part of.”
Mental health apps have proliferated in recent years with the rise of telemedicine. While such services offer benefits such as lower costs and increased access, they have also been criticized for deprioritizing personal interactions with medical professionals and compromising data security.
Other design studios looking into using apps for mental health include NewTerritory, which created a psychedelic-assisted therapy concept called Human Nature.
