TOWER

of

TREASURES

Team

TOWER OF TREASURES

Understand the factors affecting the mental health and wellbeing of returning College of Fine Arts (CoFA) students during the summer break. Design a service to help the Longhorn Wellness Center (LWC) support students during this time.
- User Research
- Secondary Research
- Synthesis
- Ideation
- Service Prototyping
- Product Prototyping
- Collaboration on Miro
- Graphic Design on Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Canva

Client

Professors

Institution

Contributions

Context

Fall 2024 | Graduate School Project (14 weeks part-time)

in collaboration with Leslie Scherger, Natalie Lim
& Rodger Rivera

Longhorn Wellness Center

Lucas Artusi (Fieldwork in Design)
& Alexis Artusi (Service Design)

M.A. in Design focused on Health
University of Texas at Austin

Design research, Strategy, Service & Product Prototyping

01. Research

The Challenge

Hidden Gems

An Abundance of Resources

Stakeholder Interview

The Longhorn Wellness Center (LWC) is part of the UT Austin HealthyHorns, which focuses on promoting student well-being and creating a healthier campus community. They offer professional and student staff lead health promotion initiatives, provide trainings and workshops, guide peer education and create health message campaigns.

“Oh, we haven’t really thought about the summer.”

Resource Mapping

Getting To Know The End Users

In a novel finding, the researchers identify an “anticipatory stress spike” of 17% experienced in the last two weeks of summer break. While still lower than mid-academic year stress, the spike was consistent across different summers. (Dartmouth)

In-depth Interviews

We realized that there are already a lot of existing and good resources on campus, but students are often unaware of the resources that are available to them, especially during the summer break. We also learned about many resources that we didnt know existed before, had we not done the research for this project.

To better understand the extent of the available resources, we looked up all the available resources on campus that aims to support student’s physical and mental health and well-being that are available in the summer.

“We are available in the summer, but the students just don’t use the resources.”

Based our initial contact with the Longhorn Wellness Center, we learned that their primary goal was to increase student's awareness of available HealthyHorns resources and its usage.

However, the summer hasn't really been a focal point for the university in addressing student’s mental health and wellbeing needs. One of the reasons being students living in different locations and doing a wide variety of different things during the summer.

How might we better understand and address the mental health and wellbeing of returning College of Fine Arts (CoFA) students during the summer break?

Recruit

To answer this question, we started off our research journey by recruiting students within the College of Fine Arts through posters, newsletters, reaching out to Faculty Members and intercepts.

5

Student Interviews

6

Faculty Interviews

We intercepted students in the common areas used card sorts to help us gain a better understanding of which resources students resort to when facing stressful situations—which as we discovered, were not the campus resources that are available to them.

Secondary Research

We talked to 5 students and 6 Faculty members, including the pharmacy school at UT who has been running programs like well-being weeks to support their students mental health and wellbeing. To start the interview off, we asked students to fill out a journey map of their most recent summer break. This helped us understand the things they went through and how they felt during those moments and dig deep in the moments that they deemed more demanding.

Secondary research provided us with additional science-backed facts, for example that students experience an anticipatory anxiety spike two weeks prior to the start of classes.

32.7% of UT students reported being diagnosed with a mental health condition at some point in their lives.
HealthyHorns Statistic Report 2023

Healthyhorns enhances the health and well-being of students’ bodies, minds and lives in support of their academic and personal goals.
HealthyHorns Mission Statement

12

Intercepts

Intercepts + Card Sorts

02. Synthesis

Understanding The Problem

During the summertime, students’ lives varies greatly. Some travel back home to their families, some have tight schedules due to internships, others might stay in Austin. The transitions might make it even harder as students experience drastic changes in a short amount of time, sometimes without adequate support, especially for the students who rely on university resources.

Identifying Patterns

End of Academic Year

Students go on full speed for finals week and without any offboarding, they are met with an abrupt stop. (Something like this could cause an ACL tear in athletes!)

Summer Time

“There are not a lot of UT resources.” (There are in fact, a lot!)
“How do I access CMHC? Could I use it during the summer?”
“Continuing students can always get to us in the summer if they want/need, but there’s generally less volume.”
“In my Hispanic community at home, mental health is not what they think about so no one is there to talk to there about it.”
“There’s a stigma in the Black community about mental health so I haven’t talked about it with my family when I go home over summer.”
“I don’t want to put pressure on my family.”
Blatant programming of assignments about mental health and wellbeing are band aids and not long-term solutions. Students value flexibility and personal decisions about how they spend their time (in relation to mental health, healing)
“Prescribed wellbeing is not the answer—it needs to be flexible and voluntary.”

Start of Academic Year

“Going back to school after spending the majority of summer alone can be very tiring - I enjoy going to school, but interacting so much is not easy for me.”
“Students are angrier and more anxious earlier on in the semester.”

What are our guiding principles?

Our research findings also brought up some important pain points. These informed our design principles to ensure that our concepts don’t lose sight of our end user’s needs.

What does UT students’ summer look like?

Developing a Framework

We identified 3 critical time periods during the summer. The transition out of the academic year into the summer, the summer break, and the transition back into the academic year.

Insights

“The harder part of summer is having to create your own schedule. It’s hard to stay determined for summer courses.”
Student B

Showcasing Existing Resources

“There is not a lot of UT resources.”
Student C

Accounting for Unique Lives

“All the stresses came from the places I was, where I couldn’t leave.”
Student A

Aligning Students & UT

“Students are angrier and more anxious earlier on in the semester.”
Faculty Member

Ease of Access

32.7% of UT students reported being diagnosed with a mental health condition at some point in their lives.
HealthyHorns Statistic Report 2023

Providing Structure

Healthyhorns enhances the health and well-being of students’ bodies, minds and lives in support of their academic and personal goals.
HealthyHorns Mission Statement

Holistic: Mind, Body, and Soul

03. Ideation

We did rounds of rapid ideation to address the issues within each time period, while keeping our design principles in mind. We developed three distinct concepts that would address the unique pain points students experience during each period:

CoFArewell

ReOrientation is an orientation event for returning students to start of the new academic year. Activities in the event includes vision board making alongside faculty and a festive countdown.
(think: new year’s eve+new year activities but for the new academic year)

Concept Selection

Design Principles How’s

We solidified our design principles by planning how we can realize them within our concepts.

Concept Development

Hook’Em’s Summer Countdown is a summer care packagewith weekly gifts consisting of resources from HealthyHorns that aims to provide students with support over the summer.
(think: advent calendars for the summer)

ReOrientation

CoFArewell is an end-of-year event where students can showcase their work to other students within the College of Fine Arts. HealthyHorns will have several booths to promote their programs and services.
(think: IKEA of student’s artworks)

Hook’Em’s Summer Countdown

Then, we presented our concepts to the LWC. While all received positive feedback, we needed to choose one to move forward with, one that best addressed user pain points and aligned with our design principles.

Hook’Em’s Summer Countdown was the winner!

Synergy

As a team, we collaborated really well. I felt especially synchronized with my teammates during our brainstorming sessions. No idea was too big or too wild—we welcomed all ideas and build upon one another’s with “what if’s” and '“yes, and’s”. We were hard on the ideas, but always remained soft on the person.

Designing for Sustainable Change

Insight Selection

We mapped out our insights based on its pain point intensity and its causality. We chose to move forward with the insights on the top left. We hypothesized that addressing these could improve student transitions and mental health outcomes, which could reduce downstream issues such as stress, coping struggles, and hesitation to receive mental health support.

New Challenge

How might we identify and address the unique struggles of returning CoFA students to help them navigate through the summer break and the transitions into and out of it?

Showcasing Existing Resources

Increasing awareness of existing UT resources to maximize their value.

Providing Structure

Creating healthy habits by promoting self regulation consistently.

Accounting for Unique Lives

Addressing discrepancies of resources & community support by meeting students where they're at.

Holistic: Mind, Body, and Soul

Addressing all aspects of wellness—mind, body and soul.

Ease of Access

Ensuring a simple, universal & accessible design.

Aligning Students & UT

Continuing & re-establishing UT's positive presence in students' lives.

04. Prototyping

After selecting Hookem’s Summer Countdown, we planned a prototype to bring our concept to life. We then conducted a user testing session with our student interviewees, and gained valuable feedback on our initial prototype.

What is Hook’Em’s Summer Countdown?

User Testing

We brainstormed some new names and eventually landed on the Tower of Treasures. realized that we needed more insights in order to thoughtfully curate the products that goes into the calendar. So we went back into the field to conduct five more intercepts—this time, we asked students to map out their cognitive and emotional load throughout the summer and consolidated them into the following graph.

Students experience high loads especially during the finals week. They also experienced the anticipatory stress spike that was consistent with the research published by Dartmouth. These moments are critical opportunities for UT to show support and gain student’s trust, so that they know that they can count on UT during these stressful moments.

Our Next Iteration

Here are some of the things we heard:

On Product Flow

"Gratitude journal might be too early – I’m starting work, starting summer classes, so I wouldn’t personally want to do that right after finals."

On Timing

"Calling it summer countdown creates feelings of wanting summer to be over... let’s go."

On Product Curation

"I like how these items can teach students to create a habit that they can take with them to the school year."

"It’s more valuable to teach students how to do these things rather than to just give them something."

On Branding

"Every week is doable. Every 2 weeks is not enough."

Back to the Field

Based on the new insights, we adjusted the calendar by:

Adding two weeks upfront to provide students with support during finals—where their cognitive and emotional load is highest—and to gain their trust of the product
Extending the calendar to finish just before the start of school
Incorporating an invitation to an in-person mini reorientation event on the first week of school
Ensuring product curation helps students offboard and re-onboard based on week load estimates and helps students establish healthy habits throughout the weeks.

Building the Tower

05. Outcome

(a.k.a. Prototype 2.0)

Showcasing Existing Resources
A resource menu at the back side of the calendar will remind you of all the resources that are available to you during the summer break. The end survey will provide suggestions of resources you can reach out to when you come back to school, based on what you liked most from the calendar.

Providing Structure
Items are curated with the aim to form healthy habits that you can carry with you towards the academic year. HEALTHYHORNSTXT will remind you to open your weekly boxes and keep you accountable!

Acounting for Unique Lives
We want no frills when it comes to you being able to get the tower of treasures. There are no sign-ups needed! A week 0 tutorial will show you how to use this product.

Holistic: Mind, Body, and Soul
Includes a variety of resources from UHS, LWC, and CMHC which are curated based to support YOU (CoFA Students) over the summer.

Ease of Access
We want no frills when it comes to you being able to get the tower of treasures. There are no sign-ups needed! A week 0 tutorial will show you how to use this product.

Aligning Students & UT
SPOILER ALERT! Some of these boxes will contain a letter and hand-picked gifts from your student advisor and career services. There is no UT without U!