One of the biggest problems arising from the global pandemic of COVID-19 is the need for social isolation and distance. In remote places, where this isolation occurs naturally due to the type of activity performed, these problems are intensified, generating stress and psychological instability in people who experience these conditions.
The Synapse application proposes an intelligent solution that is based on the collection and analysis of data in an objective and subjective way.
On the one hand, the employee can make a diary in form of video, audio or text to record his thoughts, wishes or vent about his day. There is also an agenda available for him to determine his daily tasks and his level of satisfaction with his productivity. Synapse also offers psychological assessments that classify the user's level of anxiety, stress, depression and loneliness. The employee is also provided with the possibility to schedule consultations with mental health professionals if they wish.
On the other hand, the institution responsible for the welfare of that employee receives data on his productivity, personal satisfaction and mental health status, being able to correlate and analyze these items in graphs. This way, they can better manage their employees, being aware of their health conditions despite the distance.
The challenge "A World Away" interested us as a team because it gives us the opportunity to help the people who are often the researchers, inventors and discoverers of many things that help society and make our lives easier in countless ways. So, within the problems we identified during our team debates that are faced by people working in remote locations or in social isolation, we chose to address the psychological difficulties caused by these conditions.
Based on the article "Behavioral Issues Associated with LongDuration Space Expeditions: Review and Analysis of Astronaut Journals" we were able to identify which are the main isolation factors that interfere in the psychological stability of people and lead to behavioral problems that interfere in the collective well-being of the crew and the individual. In the text "Journaling the Journey into Space" we find solutions that astronauts themselves adopt to circumvent the difficulties faced during isolation.One of the most used and effective solutions is to keep a diary recording your thoughts, goals, successes, mistakes and outbursts.
Studying the publication "NASA and Telemedicine" and the article "A Brief History of NASA’s Contributions to Telemedicine" we were able to see what the current health care that NASA provides its employees is like. Telemedicine provided great medical feats in remote locations and saved many lives, but we realized that there was a lack of a way to keep up with the psychological aspects of patients. The Synapse: Mental Health Monitoring app comes to fill that gap.
We decided to make an application that served both to assist the employee and to provide data for the institution responsible for him. Using the "coggle it" tool, we created a diagram to simulate the application's interfaces. The app will have two basic interfaces: Institution and Employee. Each with completely different goals from the other.
In the employee interface, the user can perform his registration by providing the following data: Identification Information, Past Pathological History, Family History and Psychological Assessment Tests. These tests assessed stress, anxiety, depression and loneliness respectively using the following scales: The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale, UCLA 3 Item Loneliness Scale.
After that, the user is provided with the following tools:
1) Profile: Profile photo + identity information;
2) Psychological evaluation:
2.1) Redo evaluation: the user can redo the evaluation whenever he wants and compare his results with previous evaluations.
2.2) Previous evaluations: all evaluations already carried out are stored by date.
3) Diary: he can choose whether or not his diary information can be shared for the institution.
3.1) Register a new report: video, audio or text.
3.2) Previous reports: organized by date.
If the employee chooses not to share his diary with the institution, artificial intelligence of emotion recognition through voice and artificial intelligence of emotion recognition through text will be used to detect possible signs of emotional instability in the diaries of the individual who will receive notifications recommending to look for professional help.
4) Agenda: Calendar can be organized by day, month or year.
The user can add their goals, tasks, objectives according to the tags: work, personal, physical activity. At the end of the day, he can classify the goals set as: accomplished, not accomplished, in progress with progress, in progress without progress. After that, the user can rate their level of satisfaction with their productivity of the day: dissatisfied, indifferent, satisfied and very satisfied.
5) Contact: Provides the user to schedule an appointment with a mental health professional. The user can request consultation by video, text or audio.
On the institution's interface, the following tools are available:
1) Profile: Profile photo + information of the institution;
2) Pre-registration of a new employee;
3) Employee List, the following data are available per employee:
3.1) Diaries;
3.2) Agendas;
3.3) Psychological Assessments;
3.4) Upload: The institution can upload previously collected medical information from each employee.
3.5) Analysis of data and graphs: graphs comparing productivity and mental state, graphs showing evolution of: mental state, achievement of goals and personal satisfaction.
3.6) Space of the mental health professional: place where the doctor, psychologist or psychiatrist can make his subjective analyzes on each employee.
Prototyping
The development of the Application was made through the prototyping platform MarvelApp, following the models pre-designed by the UX team in the planning phase. During the development, techniques for reusing components were used in order to reuse them. The navigability logic followed the standards raised by the UI team. Use of icons that allude to real life bring greater usability and understanding of the features.
Visual identity and Logo
The choice of the color palette was formed based on the search for reference images on our theme. In our palette there are two shades of Blue, Cerulean and Bondi, cool colors that convey many sensations among them, calm, unity, technology, order and confidence. We have Orange (web), warm color that represents, enthusiasm, vibration, expansion, humor and energy.
To idealize the logo, we favor a modern aspect bringing these elements that flat design provides us. As it is a communication and interaction specifically for people in remote areas, we also chose to use a more universal language that serves this audience, so that without many difficulties, the user can understand what is being presented and interact with the technology. Therefore, we chose to use geometric aspects to design and represent the simplicity of the shapes.
We chose the name: Synapse, which is the region located between neurons where neurotransmitters (chemical mediators) act, transmitting the nervous impulse from one neuron to another, or from one neuron to a muscle or glandular cell. We brought the word Synapse as a metaphor for communication between employees in isolation with their respective companies in health professionals, as it is a system that will allow the exchange of information that will benefit the mental health of the user.
In relation to typography, the choice of the main font was also defined through research, where we analyzed that adults have an interest in basic letters, without ornaments, provides a greater impact on them by holding their attention, which facilitate quick and dynamic reading. The base source is advent Bd3. The secondary font, FIRA SANS, will be used in our application, where we bring seriousness and ease of reading, rounded bases and no serif, we seek to bring maximum ease of reading so that all audiences do not have a problem of readability.
Taking into account that the process of designing wireframes can be defined as the skeleton of the project being a very primitive version of the visual, we use this technique to represent the diagramming of the structures of our application as mentioned in the description of this action.
Before starting the production of the interfaces, we conducted a search for references from other applications and structures that are similar in our proposal, so that we can then base our choices. We had three great examples that guided us, the first of which was Facebook itself, because, as it is a social network, we went to this great platform to be able to observe how the elements on the page are distributed.
Our goal with "Synopse: Mental Health Monitoring" is the professional's well-being and that he feels he has the power of choice and change. Transforming an app into a safe place to express yourself and facilitate contact with professional help if necessary.
Demonstration of Synopse: Mental Health Monitoring: https://sites.google.com/view/20dj3j239dj28jd28jd2ej/home?authuser=2
Journaling the Journey into Space: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/Stuster_Journals.html
Behavioral Issues Associated with LongDuration Space Expeditions: Review and Analysis of Astronaut Journals: https://lsda.jsc.nasa.gov/lsda_data/dataset_inv_data/ILSRA_2001_104__1740256372_.pdf_Expedition_8_ILSRA-2001-104_2011_31_010100.pdf
A Brief History of NASA’s Contributions to Telemedicine: https://history.nasa.gov/NASAtelemedicine-briefhistory.pdf
NASA and Telemedicine:https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-and-telemedicine
Reconhecimento de emoção através da voz para integração em uma aplicação web: https://covid19.spaceappschallenge.org/challenges/covid-challenges/world-away/teams/latin-america-space-alliance/project
Method: documents.analyzeSentiment: https://cloud.google.com/natural-language/docs/reference/rest/v1beta2/documents/analyzeSentiment?hl=Pt
Prototyping in MarvelApp: https://marvelapp.com/5986265
Diagramming on coggle it:https://coggle.it/diagram/XtMCx85SJo0Qz7VR/t/synapse/2129e2bc2930b33d9f40a3ae1bc73d08722f858116d4064e89cadde4f3b79b0f
Visual Identity and Logo: Adobe Illustrator.