Embedded Files
There's Hope was a mental health web application designed to connect university students with peer support during a time when institutional mental health resources were collapsing under the weight of a global pandemic. As UX Researcher and de facto Product Manager for a cross-functional team of five, I led the research strategy from discovery to Design Day, conducting a 502-participant survey, A/B testing, and a live focus group, all remotely.
The project won "Best Problem Statement" at URx InternHacks Design Day, and I received the individual award of "Champion of Inclusivity" for my advocacy of disability inclusion throughout the research process.
Project Background
Mental health on college campuses was already in crisis before the world shut down. Students were facing long waitlists, limited access, and a system that wasn't built to handle the volume of need. Then COVID-19 hit and what was already broken became almost entirely inaccessible.
For students from historically marginalized communities (POC, women, LGBTQ+ individuals ect.) the consequences were steeper. Not only did resources disappear, but the alternatives available were often community hotlines staffed by mandated reporters, creating real safety concerns for those whose communities have historically been harmed by police involvement.
This wasn't a hypothetical problem. These were real students, under real pressure, expected to keep performing academically while navigating a level of uncertainty and isolation that no generation had faced before. The risk of doing nothing wasn't abstract, it was measurable in deteriorating mental health, interrupted education, and in the most devastating cases, lives lost.
That's the problem we set out to address.
Proposed Solution & Scope
Our solution was There's Hope, a web application built to connect university students with peers willing to listen, empathize, and provide community-based support. The app was designed to be non-geo specific, allowing users to choose their own connections based on shared identities and interests.
Users could create a profile indicating 2-3 identities meaningful to them, which the platform used to match them with someone who could genuinely relate. For more acute situations, the app included a curated resource hub focused on de-escalation services rather than law enforcement involvement, a deliberate design choice rooted in our research findings.
What set There's Hope apart was its honesty. The app never promised to solve mental health challenges. It promised a safe, peer-driven space for connection and comfort, with a clear boundary between community support and professional care.
Competitive Differentiator
What set There's Hope apart from existing mental health platforms was its focus on peer connection over clinical intervention. While other apps positioned themselves as therapy alternatives or crisis hotlines, There's Hope was built around something simpler and more immediate: the need to feel heard.
The platform was not designed to replace professional care. It was designed to fill the gap between feeling overwhelmed and needing professional help, a space that existing resources had largely ignored. By centering identity-based matching and community-driven support, There's Hope offered something that waitlists and hotlines could not: a real human connection, on the user's own terms.
Challenges
Working within a 7-week timeline as a small team with limited professional experience pushed all of us to stay focused and move fast. Keeping pace with more experienced cohort teams was a constant motivator.
On a personal level, stepping into a dual role as both UX Researcher and Product Manager was a challenge I had not anticipated. It required learning on the go, making decisions quickly, and leading a team through moments of uncertainty. Being one person short compared to other groups turned out to be an unexpected opportunity to stretch my leadership capabilities in ways a full team would not have required.
The biggest setback was financial. We discovered late in the process that launching our application required a $99 annual fee, which was outside our budget as an unpaid internship team. We made the decision to table the launch rather than compromise the integrity of the project.
Budget & Time Constraints
The project ran for 7 weeks, from initial product discovery through Design Day, with two structured data collection checkpoints built into the timeline. As an unpaid internship team, we operated with no allocated budget. Any software or tools needed were either free alternatives or paid out of pocket by team members.
Despite these constraints, we successfully executed a 502-participant survey, an A/B test, and a live focus group, all remotely and without a budget.
Project Timeline
Research Methods
The research strategy for There's Hope was built around three methods, each chosen deliberately to match where we were in the product development process and what COVID-19 constraints allowed.
We opened with a 10-question survey on Qualtrics designed to establish need and interest for a community-based mental health application. With 502 responses from students across the U.S., primarily on the West Coast, we were able to gather both demographic data and a clear picture of the mental health landscape our users were navigating.
Once we had initial user flows and visual design options in place, we ran an A/B test via Google Forms paired with a video walkthrough. This allowed us to test design decisions remotely without sacrificing the quality of feedback.
In the final stretch before Design Day, we held a focus group via Zoom where participants were given access to the app and observed as they navigated it. I followed up with questions about the intuitiveness of the flow and their reasoning behind specific navigation choices. Their feedback directly informed our final round of changes before the presentation.
Key Findings
85.4% of survey respondents reported a negative impact to their mental health due to COVID-19, while 65% indicated they were already managing ongoing mental health challenges before the pandemic began. Only 23.6% reported satisfaction with their current access to mental health resources, confirming that the gap we sought to address was real and widespread.
Most significantly, 72.6% of respondents expressed willingness to try community-based mental health care through an application like There's Hope, validating both the need and the appetite for our solution.
Impact
The research findings were shared directly with counseling departments at our respective colleges and universities, with a focused call to prioritize expanding mental health access during the pandemic. We highlighted the measurable shift in mental health outcomes pre and post COVID-19, underscoring the urgency of stabilizing access as stay-at-home orders continued to be extended.
Beyond the institutional impact, the research also created a direct benefit for participants. Several respondents who engaged with our surveys and focus groups were connected to community-based resources, including the Trevor Project, as an immediate outcome of their participation.
Lessons Learned
Although There's Hope never launched, the experience left a lasting impression on how I approach research and collaboration.
Working alongside fellow students navigating a mental health crisis reinforced something that data alone cannot always communicate: the human urgency behind a research question. Seeing that urgency reflected in 502 survey responses and in the conversations during our focus groups made the work feel consequential in a way that classroom projects rarely do.
Building the application taught our team the value of designing for all users regardless of technical ability, and the importance of accessibility as a non-negotiable design principle rather than an afterthought. On a personal level, taking on both the UX Researcher and Product Manager roles pushed me to embrace methods and responsibilities outside my comfort zone, and to adapt my research approach to circumstances none of us could control.
The biggest takeaway: constraints do not diminish the value of research. They clarify it.
Design Day presentation for There's Hope. Our team was awarded "Best Problem Statement" and I received the individual award of "Champion of Inclusivity" for my advocacy of disability inclusion in product and user research throughout the URx InternHacks program.
Full slide deck from URx Design Day. The presentation goes deeper into our research methodology, frameworks, and design decisions behind There's Hope.
Team:
Aiden Chen-Malloy - UX Researcher & Product Manager
Kevin Carpio - Software Engineer
Kelsey Yew - Software Engineer
Swetha Mohandas - Software Engineer
Eunice Jung - Product Designer
About URx InternHacks
URx InternHacks was a competitive, mentor-driven program combining the best of a tech internship and a hackathon. Roughly 50 students were selected from a diverse applicant pool to receive mentorship from industry engineers, designers, product managers, and UX researchers, while collaborating on real product projects entirely virtually.
The program launched as a direct response to COVID-19, providing meaningful project experience to students whose internship offers had been rescinded due to the pandemic.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse