Crisis Search Flow
While the Product team was in the early stages of building Wellness Together Canada’s search feature, some people within the company were advocating for a distinct ‘crisis’ flow.
This would create an experience specifically for users who entered certain search terms associated with mental health crises. The crisis flow advocates wanted to base it on Facebook’s search feature.
I felt we had an opportunity to do things a bit differently.
I asked the following questions:
Had the company done any research into how people with lived experience of suicidality feel about Facebook’s crisis features?
How might a distinct crisis flow affect a user’s sense of control over their own journey, and their trust in our brand?
What assumptions were being made about people who input crisis-related terms into a search feature?
Who would determine what a ‘crisis-related’ search query looks like, and how?
Was there an awareness that not all self-injury is associated with suicidality?
If we were concerned with safeguarding, were we considering the risks associated with acute and emergent psychiatric interventions?
The UX team held two co-design workshops with SMEs.
The workshops led to the following insights.
We want to focus on harm reduction
We want people to feel safe talking about suicide and self-harm
We want to provide support without Othering people
Risk assessment cannot be performed on someone who is browsing a website, so there is no Duty to Warn
We do not want to intervene in a way that disrupts users’ control, expectations, or readiness
Delivered!
•A search feature with an unobtrusive crisis flow that offers support without disrupting the user’s journey
•Crisis-associated search queries are displayed with a short message at the top of the page, informing users of available options for immediate assistance
•Search results are displayed as normal below the crisis message
•“Self-injury” was distinguished from “self-harm” to account for self-injurious harm reduction behaviours such as certain forms of stimming
