Nearly 1 in 5 Americans experience mental illness, yet many UX designers lack the necessary training to effectively design for those struggling with mental health. UX practitioners Jen Smerdel and Marli Mesibov have spent the last year researching and exploring the field of mental health alongside experts to identify gaps in design knowledge. They have developed a set of guidelines leveraging behavior change recommendations for increased engagement with a population that struggles to access their motivation.

In this workshop, participants will learn a set of skills designed to improve their UX design abilities in the mental health space. Participants will also explore their own assumptions and beliefs around mental health, and practice designing real-world solutions using a combination of mental health design guidelines and UX best practices.

Why Should I Attend?

Empathy is the key to both health care and UX design. If you’re a UX designer, a strategist, or working in any form of communications with patients, this workshop is for you. If you work at a hospital, a healthcare organization, a pharmaceuticals company, or a design agency, this workshop is for you. No design skills are necessary. Just curiosity and an interest in problem-solving.

You will leave the workshop with:

About the Workshop Facilitators

Dr. Hilary Luderer  is the Director of Translational and Clinical Research at PEAR Therapeutics. Dr. Luderer is primarily focused on planning and executing clinical research studies to support PEAR’s user-centered product development process for early stage assets. Dr. Luderer is a key contributor to Pear’s regulatory submissions. In addition, she is currently leading two SBIR projects funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to develop next generation prescription digital therapeutics for opioid use disorder based on reSET-O™.