Projects

Background

Increased levels of mental illness is a growing problem in the UK and across the world. In 2010 Sidekick Studios set out to support our sister company Sidekick Ventures in exploring how digital technology could help people recovering from mental illness get better quicker.

Our Approach

Sidekick Ventures are specialists in understanding markets, and in building sustainable businesses. We at Sidekick Studios complement these business focused skills with our own specialism - building amazing products.

Whilst Sidekick Ventures set out to understand everything there is to know about how mental health services work in the UK and beyond, we set to work on understanding the experience of mental illness from a consumer perspective.

We worked with patients and clinical partners at SLaM, one of the worlds largest mental health trusts, to gather insight into how technology is currently we used to help people recover.

We quickly settled on a product concept that sought to turbo-charge the current paper based mood diaries with the power of digital technology, whilst retaining the simplicity and accessibility of current systems. The first version of Buddy embedded a mood recording system inside a piece of super low-tech equipment - a radio.

We then rapidly developed a minimum viable product and gave it to a select group of users to keep in their homes for several weeks.

After this speedy hacking stage we asked user back to our studio to gather feedback and develop a second iteration. Users (and the data they'd entered) told us that the radio wasn't enough - it didn't allow for enough expression. However, they loved the background nature of the service, and appreciated having the data in their counselling sessions.

At Sidekick we love doing this kind of practical, provocative research. If we'd just asked people what they want, we would never have got these results. Instead, by giving users a quick prototype to play with we overcame initial reservations, and managed to get much deeper insight, more quickly.

After the co-design workshops we rebuilt the product around SMS, the most accessible and discrete communication channel. We then supported the Ventures team in delivering a ten week trial with users.

Since then we've remained actively involved in Buddy's product strategy and product development. We're currently supporting the roll out of the product across two major customers.

The Outcome

The early clinical and economic evidence for Buddy's impact is very positive.

Users are significantly more likely to complete entries than through paper based products. They are less likely to miss appointments, thus saving the NHS money. Providing clinicians with accurate, patient centric data into the everyday lives of their makes the counselling process quicker and more accurate, and we hope this will lead to quicker recovery rates.

In all, Buddy is on track to deliver cheaper, better mental health services, that provide a much better patient experience. We really proud of everything we've achieved with Sidekick Ventures and Buddy over the past twelve months, and we're really excited about what the future holds as we roll the product out across the UK and beyond during the next year.