With the semi-recent legislative changes for marijuana use there have been rising concerns with those suffering from mental illnesses and their increased access to marijuana without medical guidance. 

The worry is that people are self-medicating with cannabis and making their psychosis worse or, they are potentially triggering psychosis if they weren’t suffering already. At the same time we are hearing more about people treating their mental health issues like anxiety and depression with cannabis or more so with CBD extracts. 

This dichotomy is not being addressed. How do we open up a conversation about this topic in a way that feels safe for people to discuss openly?

From this was born the question:

How might we diminish the stigma surrounding cannabis and it’s ability to treat certain types of mental health conditions like anxiety disorders and depression?

Discovery

User research tools

A loose screener was set up but we wanted to capture all types of users so it was based on whether or not the individuals had been touched by mental health, in their own lives or in those of their loved ones. We conducted in person interviews as well as sending out a survey.

Some conflicting opinions

• For or against marijuana in general

• Some had concerns about using cannabis to treat mental illness and some didn’t

Facilitated Exercises

Project goals

Key findings from facilitated exercise with stakeholders

• Increase awareness surrounding cannabis use and mental health

• Create an online dialogue

• Easily accessed and digested information

• Create Brand Partnerships

• Close the loop

• Be innovative and well researched in order to lead

• Create a proof of concept in order to get more funding

Project Outcome Statement

Create an online dialogue to increase awareness surrounding the dangers and misconceptions surrounding cannabis use and mental health so that we can be a source of unbiased and well researched truth.

Empathy map exercise

Sourced from survey results, interviews and online comments/concerns on various channels

Overall Outcome Statement

Established an outcome statement after analyzing the stakeholder and target user objectives as well as the user data that we collected.

Create an online dialogue to increase awareness of the dangers and misconceptions surrounding cannabis use and mental health so that we can be a source of unbiased and well-researched truth.

Journey Mapping

Take aways from the empathy map were channeled into a journey map to discover where our users needed guidance.

Discovered 3 types of users

“Critical Users”

• People who are witness to loved ones abusing it or self-diagnosing and using it for treatment

• Want more information

• Want more ways to help their loved ones understand and get the treatment they need
  
  

“Casual Users”

• People who want a better understanding of this issue in general. 

• Too much conflicting information out there right now. 

• Need one source of unbiased truth
  
  

“Curious Users”

• People who use cannabis (or are considering it) who want more understanding around the topic for those around them and/or for themselves 

Change of scope

In order to be able to create a small fully functional product we decided to focus on 2 types of users instead of 3. The critical user was the most risky to account for and the most involved. It was also a smaller percentage of the population. Because of this, we decided to hone in on the Casual and Curious users who we could reach much more easily. We decided we would cater towards the critical user in a later iteration. We would then be able to gather more research and obtain more guidance from mental health providers to ensure we were providing them with the best advice.

Ideation

Initially we were focused on social media awareness campaign ideas and shifted to more of a knowledge-based product where users could discover facts about the connection between cannabis and mental health issues in a non-intrusive, playful way. This would hopefully peak interest in users who were uninterested and/or unknowledgeable about the topic.

Clear the Smoke Campaign

Clear the Smoke was born, a discovery tool meant to literally clear the smoke on the dangers and benefits of Marijuana use for those struggling with mental health issues.

Various media sources would point to a web app where a curious user would run through fact or fiction quiz to discover their level of knowledge on the relationship between mental illness and marijuana use. The idea was to make it fun and engaging for a casual user and to spread awareness through social media channels using their score as a talking point.

The mockups below take the user through a series of screens where they swipe through each question and receive immediate feedback after each answer is selected. At the end they receive a score that they can share on social media as well as a full explanation of the answer to each question.

User Testing

Feedback from user testing helped us recognize some ways in which we could improve the flow and wayfinding in the app as well as validation along the way which improved engagement.

Next Steps

1. Our next iteration of this web app would be to allow our users, who would like to connect to a therapist, to complete the process within the app so have a platform to search for the help that they need.
   
   

2. After that would be to create a more robust knowledge-based site for the “critical users” who were not captured in these first iterations which focused on awareness more so than guiding and supporting users who were more interested in getting to the facts.