Mental Health Technologies
Designing for Accessibility and Inclusivity
Supervised by Dr. Joanna McGrenere.
Computer Science, eDapt Lab
University of British Columbia
September 2019 - present
My PhD thesis explores the accessibility of mental health technologies with special emphasis on the intersection of stigma and non-Western cultures of university students. This page highlights the details of four projects, all of which are included in my thesis.
Background and Goals
Cultural psychology and counseling guidelines have routinely shown that an individual’s cultural background shapes how they think about mental health. This can be complicated by the fact that much of what is known of mental health is culturally laden towards Western understanding and practice and can privilege certain dominant groups (e.g., people who identify with Euro-centric, patriarchal, or middle to upper socio-economic values). Yet, surprisingly, there have been limited considerations for users that do not fall under the WEIRD paradigm in HCI mental health studies, creating barriers for adoption and entry for those who may need help the most.
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The following two studies highlight ways to explicitly and thoughtfully bring in attitudes and behaviors of university students from non-dominant groups to inform a more inclusive and accessible design space for mental wellbeing.
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Project 1 Goals
Understand how university students of E. Asian descent in Canada use and perceive digital mental health tools, with particular focus on how their cultural background has shaped that interaction.
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Project 2 Goals
Collaborate with students and UBC counselors/administrators to understand and brainstorm designs and ideas to help UBC international students' mental health.
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Project 3 Goals
Based on a design proposed in Project 2, we prototyped the Digital Human Library (DHL), a storytelling platform that enables students to actively engage with stories written by fellow students to learn how others navigate their mental health. Our goal was to explore how DHL could help university students increase their self-efficacy toward help-seeking.
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Project 4 Goals
While Project 3 focused on the benefits of reading peer stories, it left open the question of how students might be supported in creating their own narratives, particularly when they face emotional barriers or struggle to articulate their own experiences. Project 4 was designed to address this challenge by investigating how AI tools might support students in writing mental health stories intended for sharing.​
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DFP poster that outlines studies 1 and 2 (Best Poster Award)
Methods
Project 1 Methods
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Remote semi-structured interviews
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Speed Dating: rapidly gather data on participants' perspectives by showing them existing mental health tools
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Thematic Analysis
Project 2 Methods
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Remote participatory design sessions with 14 students and 5 UBC counselors and administrators (split into 3 sessions)
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Collaborative persona development activity
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Analysis of participant sketches and transcripts leading to the development of design dimensions (types of support, types of interaction, types of safety)
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Development of 4 medium fidelity design mockups with storyboards
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Post-session survey to gather perceptions on the mockups and storyboards
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Project 3 Methods
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Authoring survey: collected stories to be included in the prototype
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Co-design with a mental health clinician and HCI researchers
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Development of a prototype
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Diary Study and semi-structured interviews
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Thematic Analysis
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Project 4 Methods
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Design and development of 2 prototypes using OpenAI API
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Comparative structured observations between two different therapeutic writing methods (Hero's Journey and Expressive Writing) with writers and readers
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Writers: Semi-structured interviews​
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Readers: Online questionnaire comparing the writers' story outputs
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Reflexive Thematic Analysis
Activity Cards for collaborative persona development
To help ground the participatory design sessions and address stigma that may hinder international students from freely talking about mental health, I devised an artifact that would allow us to generate a persona as a group. Informed by previous formative studies, I seeded several behavior and attitude variables in a deck of pptx slides. Participants combined them to form their own individual personas and then came together at the design session to discuss and consolidate them into one persona. Preliminary findings suggest that students felt more comfortable talking about the mental health challenges of the persona rather than talking about their own experiences more directly.
What We Learned
Project 1 Findings
There are cultural factors in how E. Asian students in Canada use mental health technologies due to growing up with significant stigma and not knowing how to talk about mental health. This has led to: barriers to adoption and entry due to a perception that apps assume users have some prior knowledge of mental health and valuing support from peers online through stories and learning to be more confident ("self-advocate") about mental health.​
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Project 2 Findings
​Broadly, we found that international students weigh elements of trust, perceived benefit, and comfort level to determine which types of tools to use: those with features that support self-help (e.g. meditation), social-help (e.g. peer support), and professional help (e.g. Telehealth). Stigma and lack of mental health literacy have led our participants to trust themselves and professionals the most.
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Design Dimensions: Storyboards and Mockups
After the participatory design sessions, I analyzed the data to develop design dimensions that can address the needs and challenges of our participants. We then iteratively created four mockups of designs that span this design space. We embedded the mockups in their own storyboards to communicate how they can be used. To evaluate their impact, we sent our participants a survey with these storyboards to gather data on their attitudes and perceived usefulness.
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Project 3 Findings
Through sharing and reading stories on the Digital Human Library platform, students developed greater confidence in recognizing and managing their mental-health needs. Exposure to relatable narratives improved self-efficacy and reduced the uncertainty often tied to seeking support. The findings demonstrate that narrative-based, peer-to-peer experiences can simultaneously foster empathy and empower user action.
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Project 4 Findings
Study 4 revealed key tensions in AI-assisted therapeutic writing: between guidance and autonomy, emotional openness and self-protection, and connection and detachment. Participants appreciated how AI prompts scaffolded reflection but also worried that algorithmic feedback risked oversimplifying or misreading their emotions. These tensions highlight the challenge of designing reflective technologies that feel supportive without undermining authenticity or sensitivity.
Storyboards with medium fidelity mockups of 4 different designs. As of 2022, I am pursuing Storyboard #3, The Digital Human Library to prototype and evaluate with users. To see a higher quality version of the storyboards, please click on this LINK.
Impact
My research reimagines how we design digital mental-health technologies. While most mental-health tools are clinically driven and evaluated for therapeutic outcomes, my work shows that we also need to design for gentle introductions to care. Through four studies involving interviews, co-design, storytelling, and AI-assisted writing, I explored how technology can help people approach mental-health support through connection, curiosity, and cultural understanding. Together, these studies point toward relational and culturally responsive designs that make engaging with mental health feel less clinical and more human.
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My Reflections
This research offered new and exciting learning opportunities.
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Taking on projects as a lead researcher
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Advising undergrad research assistants on Design Thinking and UCD approaches
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Networking with different stakeholders
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UBC counselors, and department & campus advisors
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Other grad students at the UBC HCI research clusters (DFP, MUX)
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A lot of effort and time was spent developing ethical and considerate ways to minimize discomfort.
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Doing everything remotely! Not ideal for participatory design.
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