MindTales
MindTales Emotional Support empowers communities to cope with anxiety and depression to improve their cognitive state via self-help exercises, wellness games and seamless live connection with healthcare professionals across the globe.
About
The MindTales Emotional Support app is based on a science-backed Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) digital therapy course. Users have the chance to go on an interactive wellness journey, where they can explore meditation tracks for various moods or monitor their personal development using SMART goals. Users also have the opportunity to practice daily journaling exercises and visit Learning Zones to acquire the skills to process difficult emotions. Each level of progress comes with fun badges and rewards points! If a user requires personalised professional help, MindTales offers direct support with counsellors, life coaches and wellness specialists. Users can choose from an extended, global network of specialists and access their support from anywhere in the world.
Background
Problem
There is an unparalleled need for digital wellness support and self-help courses. Look no further than the latest world data statistics. According to the World Health Organisation, around 450 million people worldwide suffer from a mental health disorder. And in the MENA region, empirical studies suggest that 13-18% across populations are coping with depression. As research continues, these numbers are still rising.
Solution
MindTales approached CCT to help develop their innovative healthcare ecosystem, including their mobile application for patients and the web-based application for healthcare facilitators/consultants - an environment which enables specialists to support communities to overcome mental health challenges. This unique CBT course was created in collaboration with one of the biggest universities in the UAE. From the convenience of their homes, users of the MindTales system can receive help straight from certified therapeutic and psychology practitioners in just one tap.
Development
The MindTales team came prepared - the designs were ready for development, allowing CCT to jump straight into the mobile application MVP development stage of the project.
MindTales stands out from common telehealth systems due to its very dynamic content building approach. Its custom architecture allows the creation of a variety of different exercises (questionnaire based, video-based exercises, meditations, etc.) without any additional input from developers via CMS.
Mobile apps (iOS & android)
Purpose of the mobile application – to present users (patients) with an easy interface to connect with psychology professionals. The core of the MindTales app is a CBT course consisting of pre-made components, such as:
- Games
- Meditations
- Self-assessing quizzes
- Videos
- Up to date articles and podcasts
Professional consultancy with the greatest field experts via integrated scheduled video conversations whenever extra counselling is needed.
According to the user’s selected wellness parameters and support preferences, this application automatically proposes best matched experts who fit the user’s timeframe, problematic areas and other defined preferences.
Via a fully adjustable schedule tool, the user is able to manage their appointments with counsellors and wellness specialists.
Supplementary package of extra daily exercises to fit into everyone’s special needs.
Badges and achievement points system is implemented to make users’ wellness routines even more attractive for those who are seeking help or who want to learn more about their mental health.
Web app
The next step was to create a web application part of the system, which would address the needs of the healthcare professionals (consultants) to use the consulting platform with ease.
Key purpose of the web application is to:
- Enable consultants to contact their patients via video/audio call
- Provide specialists with the ability to manage their schedule and upcoming sessions
- Allow for the consultant to make notes of the counselling session and to recommend wellness exercises from the app to create personalized, integrated and comprehensive wellness plans
Landing page
The last step was to communicate and attract target audiences to use the platform. A landing page was developed with this purpose in mind. We followed the same design guidelines as the entire platform. The landing site promotes users to join the MindTales application by including:
- Separate anxiety, depression and personality questionnaires which help each user to assess his or her current mental health levels
- A knowledge hub section, where users are able to find relevant videos, resources, articles and podcast episodes to support their mental healing curve
Challenges
- A complex dynamic architecture chosen in the early stage of the project showed its value in the future, allowing faster implementation of new larger scale features, thus saving time and budget for the owners in the long run.1
- Right to left (RTL) content implementation – specifics of the UAE target audience and language preferences; custom add-ons to components were required.2
- Early deadline requirement for the mobile app development phase.3
- Agile (very agile) – quick reaction and solutions for the prior unexpected but necessary critical functionalities.4
- CCT team insights and good practice advice for the client to promote optimal feature implementation for the requirements5
Technologies
Devops:
- Azure (2 environments)
Back End:
- Python
- Django
- PostgreSQL
- Amplitude
Front End:
- ReactJS
- React-native
Other:
- Twillio
- Fastlane
- Firebase
- Stripe
Acknowledgement
Thank you to the MindTales team for the smooth communication during each development phase and your close involvement in providing support as needed.