Recovering opioid addicts undergo a tough time in keeping themselves motivated throughout the process. Many lose motivation and relapse. The aim of this product is to provide a means to celebrate their recovery stages and help them regulate their lifestyle by staying in touch with care providers even after their return from rehab centers.
The Prompt — How might we curtail opioid addiction in Indiana?
Achievements themselves are less important than how you choose to commemorate and celebrate the accomplishments.
To understand the opioid addiction treatment process, we scheduled interviews with rehab center officials, recovering addicts and support groups.
1. Staffs were friendly and focused in providing a homely atmosphere to the recovering addicts.
2. Cleanliness and health of an addict is monitored periodically.
3. Availability of fun space for playing cards and other games.
4. Motivating quotes around the most accessible places.
5. Garden and meditation space are well maintained.
6. White boards and group therapy places were not sophisticated.
1. Phases of treatment in the rehabilitation process.
2. Treatment costs.
3. Stigma for being an addict.
4. Inconsistent follow ups.
5. Relapse rate and potential causes.
6. Formal process and less appreciations involved.
7. Hard to build intrinsic motivation.
"75% of our consumers, graduate in the rehab process, even higher success rate, while 25% or less relapse"
"Sober person has to want to be sober, you can't be sober for them, they need to feel badly enough, feel enough pain to want to change"
"Seeing my mom's opioid addiction case, I would rather die than taking opioid for my upcoming surgery"
From our interviews, we learned the phases an addict goes through in the recovery process. To define and figure out where there could be improvements to prevent relapse, we sketched out the stages they go through in the treatment cycle. As a result, we found that the follow ups were inconsistent after the in-house treatment (Dedicated treatment under care provider at rehab).
From our interviews with rehab center staff and victims, we received valuable information related to our problem space. In order to categorize them, we used affinity diagram to form themes from the collected qualitative data.
After Identifying codes from our qualitative research findings, we wanted to empathize the user on what they think, what they see around them, what they do, what are their pain and gains. So, we drew an empathy map to understand the perspective of our audience on the rehab treatment and societal challenges.
From our above analysis, we chose the essential points that could help addicts, when addressed. Below are those,
1. Need for fun and motivation in the recovery process.
2. Easy mode for communication with the care providers.
3. Provide continuum of care (During and after treatment).
4. Recovering addicts should be able to receive timely feedback.
5. Find opportunities to engage in social activities.
From our findings, we wanted to focus on improving the rehab process for addicts to prevent relapse.
To better understand our target audience, we contrived two personas.
How might we improve the effectiveness of rehab process to help the addicts in the process of their recovery ?
We began to brainstorm among ourselves and then brainstormed with people of different backgrounds. Out of all the ideas we shortlisted three ideas considering the social, economical, political and technical feasibility.
The Journaling application to document recovering addicts habits which would provide patterns to identify positive and negative patterns related to misusing opioids.
The milestone celebration application that provide an opportunity for a recovering addict to celebrate milestones and small victories in the recovery process.
The Penpal connection application connects recovering addicts who are in the same vicinity to foster peer support.
We evaluated our prototype with user of different backgrounds such as knowledgeable person in UX, novice mobile app users and highly skilled mobile user. The reason for testing with diverse group is to gather perspectives of all levels of user because it is feasible for an opioid addict to fall in any of the above category.
Apart from the user evaluations, we did cognitive walkthrough and heuristics to uncover potential issues from the users point of view.
Prioritizing the issues identified from user evaluations, we would also like to explore possibilities to partner with government or local organizations to develop a more definitive reward system that is above and beyond screen-based rewards (monetary, social status, or employment possibilities linked to the successful completion of milestones).