Mimente

Rethinking Therapy Models

Role

Designer & Researcher

Timeline

January - May 2024

Tools

Figma, good old whiteboard & stickies :)

Skills

Storytelling, business strategy, human-centered design, visual design, facilitation, systems thinking,

Project Video

Samantha's Story

Opportunity Space

Mimente, Latin America’s first digital therapy clinic, aimed to expand into the U.S. market with a focus on providing culturally relevant, Spanish-language therapy to the Latinx population. The problem space was to uncover unmet needs within this community, design a user-centered market entry strategy, and develop a scalable, differentiated product model that could address cultural, language, and financial barriers to mental health access.

Challenges

Engaging with a diverse user base to capture nuanced cultural and financial barriers to therapy access.
Balancing the need for affordability with therapists' financial sustainability.
Addressing regulatory complexities related to cross-border therapy practices.
Finding creative ways to test our ideas with limited resources.

Key Achievements

Research & Discovery: Conducted interviews, system mapping, and ecosystem analysis to understand the barriers to mental health access for the Latinx community in Los Angeles. Identified recurring themes such as trust-building, a strong preference for BIPOC therapists, and significant challenges related to affordability and cultural understanding.
User Personas & Synthesis: Created personas, including a bilingual therapist from Los Angeles who sought to serve her community more meaningfully, to guide solution development. Synthesized data using visual frameworks to identify opportunities for impactful interventions.
Prototyping & Testing: Designed and iterated on a business model inspired by TOMS Shoes and membership models like Costco and Amazon. Our solution proposed a "buy one, gift one" approach, allowing users to purchase therapy for themselves and sponsor sessions for others, increasing accessibility while maintaining earnings for therapists.
Final Design Presentation: Delivered a polished design story and business model prototype. Presented insights, user-tested concepts, and actionable recommendations to Mimente, highlighting the path toward sustainable growth in the U.S. market.

Changing the payment model structure to allow therapists to sustainably balance fully-paying clients with those who have lower-income.

Our Solution: A membership model that includes two people as the baseline. The customer then chooses whether to send the second membership to a friend of family member, or donate it back to Mimente to provide healthcare for someone who can’t afford it.

We envisioned Mimente as an employment model that allows Latinx therapists to maintain financial stability while still serving low-income patients—the very reason many of them became therapists in the first place: to support their community.

This solution emerged from a key insight we heard repeatedly: Latinx therapists deeply want to serve Latinx patients, but many Latinx patients cannot afford the cost of therapy, and therapists—already under financial pressure—cannot afford to take on lower-paying clients.

The Process

Our research included a combination of literature reviews, legal analyses, and competitor assessments.

The literature review allowed us to quickly grasp the overarching themes of this project, specifically the intersection of therapy, mental health, and the Latinx community. It provided essential context, informed our understanding, and guided the development of interview questions.
The legal review focused on understanding how therapy businesses operate in compliance with both state and national laws. We examined regulations regarding therapist licensing, practice locations, and the geographic considerations of patient care. Given that Mimente operates as an online therapy platform, it falls under telehealth regulations, a rapidly evolving area influenced by recent pandemic-related shifts. Understanding these complexities was crucial to identifying compliance challenges and opportunities. Some sources included Board of Psychology, MAP!, PSYPACT, CAMFT Attorneys, California Code of Regulations.
Lastly, our competitor analysis shed light on the competitive landscape Mimente would navigate. We identified a range of competitors, from those closely aligned with Mimente—such as a platform offering online mental health services to Latinx individuals in the U.S. with therapists based in Latin America—to organizations with looser ties, like the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), which provides free, low-cost, and sliding-scale mental health programs, including Medi-Cal options for Latinx communities in Los Angeles.

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While conducting research, we simultaneously began setting up interviews. We spoke with 14 individuals, including mental health experts, therapists, and patients, with most participants coming from the Latinx community.

One of the user interviews with a mental health counselor

After each interview, we synthesized our notes using storytelling methods. The primary note-taker and interviewer recounted the session as a narrative, while the other two team members captured key insights. Once all interviews were completed, we synthesized and analyzed the data to identify overarching themes.

Sorting sticky notes in FigJam of themes

Change in perspective?

user

At this stage, we encountered a challenge: what should we do with all this information? To move forward, we revisited the identities of the individuals we interviewed and examined how their perspectives connected to the themes we identified. As highlighted in the diagram below, we initially assumed that the primary user would be the patient. However, this process led us to consider an alternative perspective: what if the therapist were viewed as the main user instead?

Four of the eleven themes we found

More synthesis, finding patterns among mental health providers versus perspectives.

During the define stage, we created three compelling user personas: "Samantha," "Julia," and "Amanda." These personas were synthesized from our research and interviews. To develop them, we used methods such as journey mapping, bilingual question cards, and co-design sessions conducted during an expert interview.

The rest of our process centered on finding solutions for Samantha, a mid-career therapist. However, our final solution ultimately benefited all three personas—Samantha, Julia (an early-career therapist), and Amanda (the patient)—which was an exciting outcome.

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Example of the POV statements we crafted for our end-users.

I will spare you the 100+ ideas we came up for these users. Main methods fot ideation included design thinking classics: MINDMAP, Lighting Demos, 3 "I"s: illegal, immoral, and impossible, superheros. We sorted these ideas out into 3 categories: low-hanging fruit, delightful, risky. While Figjam was extremely helpful for other parts of the HCD process, we found it best to get off our screens for full engagement (and fun!).

We developed three low-fidelity prototypes based on our initial ideas, which helped us select one to refine and iterate further. While I will describe the final solution in detail later, one prototype we decided not to pursue was "car therapy." This concept emerged from an interview with a Latinx patient who shared that during the pandemic, she often attended telehealth therapy sessions in her car to find privacy and quiet away from her family.

Inspired by this insight, we explored the idea of Mimente operating in unconventional spaces—like cars. "Car therapy" offered not only a private environment but also a potentially more comfortable setting, as patients might feel more inclined to share their thoughts while watching the world pass by.

To prototype this idea, we interviewed campus staff responsible for transporting students to class in golf carts. Interestingly, our hypothesis proved correct: even during a brief 10-minute ride, students were more likely to open up and share personal details about their lives.

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Context of our idea:

Drawing from the needs of Samantha and Julia, we envisioned Mimente as an employment opportunity that enables latinx therapists to maintain financial stability while serving low-income patients, a reason why many of the latinx therapists wanted to become therapists in the first place- to help their community. Our goal was to reimagine the clinic structure to allow therapists to balance fully paying clients with lower-income ones.

One of my teammates, Rebecca, recalled the success of the shoe brand TOMs, known for its "buy one, give one" model—donating a pair of shoes for every pair sold. This inspired us to explore similar models, along with other analogies like Costco and Amazon, whose baseline memberships inherently accommodate multiple users (e.g., two people per account by default).

Before presenting this idea, we needed to address a few additional details:

Where will the non-paying user come from?
To explore this, we interviewed organizations like NAMI Pomona Valley (pictured below) to gauge their interest in partnering with Mimente. NAMI Pomona Valley currently offers mental health services such as support groups but does not provide one-on-one therapy sessions—an opportunity for Mimente to step in. The response was overwhelmingly positive for several reasons:

Trusted Referrals: Our research and interviews revealed that Latinx individuals are far more likely to use a resource if referred by a trusted organization or individual. By partnering with NAMI Pomona Valley, a respected organization in the community, Mimente could establish credibility and build a trusted reputation among this clientele.
Resource Gaps: As noted earlier, organizations like NAMI and Medicare have limited resources to address mental health needs. By introducing Mimente, more individuals could access the help they need, bridging a crucial gap in available services.
Focus on Quality: Partnering with organizations like NAMI allows Mimente to concentrate on delivering high-quality therapy and enhancing other aspects of the service, rather than investing time and energy in sourcing low-income patients. This collaboration ensures resources are allocated efficiently and effectively.

How do people who "donate" sessions know it's actually going to someone?
To address this, we came up with the idea of a monthly newsletter that shares updates on Mimente’s progress. This newsletter would include stories from customers, data on how many therapy hours were provided, and other key details.

We would also set monthly goals to encourage more donations and show how we're improving. This keeps donors informed and creates a sense of community by showing the real impact of their contributions.

Presenting our ideas with NAMI Pomona

Storytelling

A unique aspect of this project was the storytelling. Designing a user-centered solution based on research is one thing, but "selling" that idea to a client is another. Throughout the design process, we were also working on storyboards, sketching animations, and creating a video that encapsulated our journey in a clear, compelling way. We focused on tapping into the emotions of our audience, particularly in telling Samantha's story and how it connected to our final design solution. We did this so effectively that we even made several people in the audience tear up!

If you'd like to view the video, you can do so here. During our presentation we handed out "acceptance letters" to the audience, mirroring the moment when Samantha recieves hers (around 3:10). We also passed out chocolate and strawberry ice cream at the end—this will make sense once you watch :)

Feedback

We received some amazing feedback on both our solution and our storytelling.

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Personal Reflections

This project was an incredible project to be on. The first thing that comes to mind was the amazing team I had. We were able to push and challenge ourselves, but I felt like I could really rely and trust them which allowed us to create polished and nuanced work. We still keep touch today, which speaks volumes to the relationship I have with them. Like any HCD project, our process and solution makes sense in hindsight, but we certainly had a lot of ambiguity to navigate and break throughs. I admire that our solution was innovative, while still rooted in social impact and advocating for systemic changes.