About 1 out of every 7 young adults in the United States have a substance use disorder - nearly double the percentage of adults over age 25. Addiction takes the lives of thousands every year, while the stigma of addiction further isolates those that endure living with it. As part of my team's Master’s capstone, our clients, Oasis Recovery Center and Biomotivate, asked us to conceptualize a product that utilizes technology to modernize resources for people with addictions.
Communities can form over hobbies, demographics, and beliefs, all while being able to stay anonymous.
LiveLine users can easily talk on a hotline anytime, get signs of an overdose, or reach out to their communities.
Journaling and mood tracking can help people learn about their triggers, and over time heal from traumas.
We explored the domain, defined the problem, ideated, and refined the solution. During the 8 month span of the project, I helped lead the project’s UX and UI designs, did project management for the first half, and contributed to research throughout.
Our team went to a drug court session, sober living home, treatment center, and 14 different peer support groups to familiarize ourselves with the domain.
Drugs, death, relapse, depression, withdrawal
Below are screenshots taken of posts in addiction-related Reddit communities. They contain imagery and stories that may be triggering to readers.
Once we understood the current system of treatment, we turned to Reddit to hear from people that aren’t being helped. Reddit hosts large, anonymous addiction communities (over 100,000 people are in r/opiates alone). Below are some of the posts we saw in various subreddits.
We conducted interviews over Zoom and didn’t collect any identifying information.
We synthesized our research through a journey map and chose two key moments to focus on. This helped us identify a specific problem and target demographic.
Those who have a positive experience at their first meeting can form life-long communities. However, attendees are mostly older men, and most groups emphasize giving into a “higher power”. For people such as young adults, women, and atheists, it can be uncomfortable attending with strangers.
Design Decision:
Help people comfortably join or form communities
Relapses are hugely destructive - especially in isolation. They further feeds into the hopelessness that makes recovery seem impossible. Relapses can occur even after years of sobriety, especially when a stressful event occurs, such as a death, change in job, or divorce.
Design Decision:
Provide immediate access to short and long-term support for managing triggers
Young adults are nearly twice as likely to have an addiction than those over 25, but only 12% of Alcoholics Anonymous members were under the age of 30 in their latest survey. Many young adults we spoke to were turned off by the religious language of these programs. Program information also wasn’t easily accessible online, requiring a phone call to learn more.
Design Decision:
Create a digital touch point flexible to different beliefs
We narrowed down our concepts first internally, and then by sharing them with our target demographic for feedback.
Initial sketches
Storyboards
Feedback Sessions
This “buddy” would be matched with a person based on their preferences, such as age or gender, and guide them through finding and attending a support group meeting that was a good fit for them. We verified the need and interest in this solution through interviews with our target demographic.
COVID-19 forced support groups that bonded in-person during and after meetings to move to Zoom, so we pivoted by refocusing on online community building. We started looking at existing social media platforms and reimagined them so they were made for people in recovery.
Live streaming was popular amongst our research participants for the way its long-form content mirrored live support group meetings. It allows people to watch and participate in recovery content while staying anonymous, making it a much lower barrier to entry. This format also makes it easy to access relatable communities that resonate with one’s unique recovery goals and treatment methods.
We conducted moderated usability tests on our rough prototype to gather feedback and co-design future iterations. For instance, we verified an interest in journaling, with even a couple people noting that the peer support group they attended recommend they journal. We also heard enthusiasm for recovery communities bonding over special interests, like art and gaming.
This concept has gotten overwhelming positive feedback through user testing sessions with over a dozen people in recovery. We’ve passed on our research and design to our clients, Oasis Recovery Center and Biomotivate.
As someone who hasn’t been directly impacted by addiction, it was important for me to learn how I can involve those that are affected into the design of the platform. If I were to do anything differently, I would have narrowed our specific target audience earlier into the process to focus our research efforts and give us more time to explore our solution. But all in all I learned how to juggle competing client interests and collaborating long-term with my team.