Increasing the Accessibility of Therapy in Chicago for College Students through unique filtering options

As a UX Researcher within the Accessible Therapy team, we tackled the goal of making therapy more accessible to college students through affordability. I leveraged primary interviews and led secondary research to identify what stops users from receiving help.

We coded map prototype in Leaflet API to showcase low cost therapy centers in Chicago filtered by underrepresented identities and placed Top 10 in DePaul's Innovation Expo.  

A painting I drew to illustrate that pain sometimes requires a second look to be found

Goal

How might we make therapy more accessible for college students with limited income?

In Fall of 2022, our three-person team researched the barriers to entry in mental health therapy for more accessible solutions in Chicago, highlighting how UX extends beyond websites and hardware into client-first services.

Solution

Synthesized research and coded a map to highlight affordable low-cost therapy in Chicago, placing top 10 in Depaul's Innovation Expo

After five weeks, we designed a map using Leaflet (a JavaScript API) to showcase five subgroups that users could filter through, each offering low-cost therapy/support options. In March 2023, I extended the project and received a $2000 scholarship by presenting a concept influenced by this work during DePaul’s Innovation Expo.

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Scroll to read more about the process

Discovering the User Problem

How might we make talk therapy more accessible to students ages 20–25 in the Chicagoland area?

Since this topic is so extensive, creating constraints to our research was important. We focused on targeting student’s with minimal disposable income and utilized a mix of research methods:

  • a survey for therapy goers to share what they want in a therapist
  • secondary research on therapy’s barriers to entry
  • primary interviews with mental health care professionals

Major Barriers

Students face stigma and financial constraints that stop them from receiving mental health support.

Our secondary research pointed towards systemic barriers such as stigma, finances, and how location impacts a communities needs. But these were large roadblocks, some involving years of societal view points or legislation behind them. Our change would have to focus on the nuance of this all.

But we needed to gain a better understanding of how we got here in the first place.

Primary Research

We interviewed two mental health professionals to understand how to mitigate the systemic constraints

Stakeholders

Insurance impacts the availability of therapy immensely due to deductibles and coverage types

Even through this service is client focused, one of the largest stakeholders is insurance companies and how their range of financing options and lack coverage for mental health negatively affects users.

This is due to three main factors:

  • Monthly insurance costs based on the plan selected
  • How that plan impacts a deductible
  • Whether a therapist is considered in or out-of-network

Simplifying the struggle

In-network providers are limited due to low insurance payouts and as result increase paying out-of-pocket

Finances are such a large issue within the mental health care space because insurance companies don’t always cover these services, causing users to pay out of pocket in an attempt to lower their deductible enough to receive some sort of coverage.

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But this reduction in cost only occurs if therapists are considered “in-network”.

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Therapists have to apply to each of these companies to receive “in-network” status which can take a lot of paperwork and time. Only then do they receive a percentage of what a client pays to the insurance company.

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And it’s this level of nuance that makes the mental health care system in the U.S. so difficult.

The Breakthrough

Recognizing the similarities between UX and Therapists showed the importance in user-focused services

As a designer, this struck a chord with me. UX isn’t just about solving problems, its deciding what problems are possible to solve.

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When clients are in their healing journey, therapists have to figure out the best way to approach their needs testing out different topics to see what resonates most. Its this process discovery that builds a therapist-client relationship.

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Even though designers don’t always receive this level of interaction with their users, they still fall in a similar role: deducing and moving forward, building a future that meets their users needs. As interesting as it may be to design in a vacuum, acknowledging business goals as part of the process is imperative to what is possible to compromise on and pushing that as far as one can.

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In a similar sense, insurance company’s build systemic boundaries around this therapist-client relationship. And we realized, a useable product for this research is not one that challenges insurance companies, but that works despite its presence.

User Surveys

We synthesized 34 responses and saw people wanted filtering options that would make them feel more comfortable in selecting a location to receive support

We synthesized 34 responses from a survey that we sent out through social media and our interpersonal circle that gave participants anonymity. While this limited our ability to follow up on the responses, it gave participants trust that their responses would remain confidential.

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Filtering Options

Users wanted identity filtering options for their therapists and as a result focused on systemically overlooked identities  

  • Users wanted women identifying therapists
  • LGBTQ+ clients wanted therapists who also identified as LGBTQ+

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Since identity was such a common theme, we extended these filters out to a few other groups that face systemic oppression such as veterans, women focused services, and community therapists within disadvantaged neighborhoods.

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We researched each of these communities, building a list of resources for students to look towards with their type of service and address.

Solution

Coded a map utilizing Leaflet API to show low cost therapy within Chicago through identity focused filters and received a $2k scholarship for this idea

Our final deliverable was a map showcasing each of these clinics/support centers using the JavaScript API Leaflet. After we finished this project, I started reflecting on what the possible future of a service like this could be.

Is there a way for users to easily contact low-cost therapists in their area provided directly from their school? Would this be a scalable solution to the shortage universities face within their internal mental health department?

I wasn’t sure but I felt this idea had merit so in March 2023, I pitched this concept at DePaul’s Innovation Expo and received a $2,000 scholarship.

Reflections

MVP's are always important when building 0-1 designs

Not everything can come at first glance, but peeling back the layers showed me there is viability to this idea. While I know this concept has been generally discussed, having universities sponsor the effort, could be the one thing that pushes this product from a thought into a true client-first business.

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