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UI Design
UX Design
January 2025
The "Meesterproef" is the final project in the line of work made for the Visual Interface Minor at the University of Applied Sciences Amsterdam. It's a final test, combining all competencies and skills learned over the course of the minor; Converting a article case into an interactie experience.
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Changing the way we talk about Mental Health, Chaning the way we feel.
"The waiting lists in mental health care are increasing. Talk to friends and family more often about your feelings, is what they say. But if you look at social media, you can see that you can also go too far. There, it’s unhealthily often about our mental health." Opening of the Article
The website is a based on an excellent article written by Nina Polak called Moeten we niet wat minder over onze Mentale Gezondheid praten? This artictle discusses the problems in the way we talk about Mental Health nowadays, exploring the problems in the language we use. It's an article that really spoke to me and inspired me to make this project in which I, not only discuss these problems brought up in the article, I also allow readers to immideatly make changes in their vocabulary by implementing interactive elements.
The process began with extensive research into the content of the article and understanding the difficulties we are facing these days regarding mental Health Discussion. In case you don't feel like reading the entire article, I have made a quick summary on the side here.
Therapytalk (Using clinic terms in regular conversations) is ubiquitous. Words like OCD, Autism, Depression etc. are overly used in regular day-to-day conversations. A dangerous practice scine it can allow people to wrongfully understand certain illnesses as well as wrongfully self-diagnose. The Covid-19 pandemic and Social Media were and are a huge catalyst for this behavior.
We should use human language when talking about our feelings and mental health. Say that you're scared of something, not that it's triggering your anxiety. Or that something is making you sad instead of depressed. But most important: Be ready to really listen to one another and ask what you can do for them. That's the way we as regular humans can have an honest and open conversation about our feelings
For the site, I wanted to use a scroll-jacking technique to not only present information in a progressive disclosure manner but also to make the site more interesting and interactive. Next to this addition I also added 2 "exercises" in which readers can bring their own input to the table.
In the first element users are presented with two conversations. In it's core, the two conversations are the same. The only difference between them is the language used. Users can interact by picking the conversation they feel is the most human and get feedback on their choice.
This element gives the user a qoute with 2 words that they can change by clicking on the words. Users will actively change language in this exercise. The word "depression" will be changed into "a sad and empty feeling" and "social-anxiety" will be changed into "behaviour and emotions when going outside". Showcasing how easy it is to impactfully change your language.
Scince scroll-jacking is a pretty hard concept to succesfully prototype. I mimicked this effect by using After Effects. This way I could showcase the effect without the hassle of trying to code or prototype it. Have a look a the video below!
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