Design product to improve Mental Health
Product Design Interview Question : Design product to improve Mental Health
This post is for our Paid Subscribers. If you haven’t subscribed yet,
1. Clarifying Questions
Before jumping into a solution, I want to make sure I understand the scope and context of this problem well.
Who are we building for? Are we targeting a specific age group, such as teens, working adults, or seniors? Or is this a broad consumer product?
What is the company context? Is this a new standalone product or an extension of an existing health platform? That changes our build vs. partner decisions significantly.
Are there regulatory constraints to consider? Mental health is a sensitive space. Are we looking at a clinical-grade product (FDA, HIPAA) or a wellness app that stays on the consumer side of the line?
What is the business model? Subscription, employer-sponsored, insurance-integrated, or freemium?
What platforms are in scope? Mobile-first, web, wearables integration?
What does success look like for the company in 12 to 18 months? Is this about user growth, clinical outcomes, or revenue?
For this exercise, I will assume: consumer-facing mobile app, targeting working adults aged 22 to 45, wellness positioning (not clinical), subscription-based, launching in the US market first.
2. Product Description
I am proposing Serene, an AI-powered mental wellness and therapy companion app. Serene sits between self-help apps like Headspace and full clinical therapy platforms like BetterHelp. It uses a conversational AI model to provide always-available emotional support, structured mental wellness programs, and intelligent triage that connects users to licensed therapists when the AI detects clinical-level distress.
The core insight is that the biggest gap in mental healthcare is accessibility and consistency, not availability of therapists. Most people do not seek help until a crisis, because traditional therapy is expensive, scheduling-heavy, and stigmatized. Serene normalizes daily mental health check-ins the same way fitness apps normalized daily workouts.
Key differentiators: a proactive AI companion (not reactive chatbot), personalized evidence-based programs (CBT, DBT, mindfulness), mood trend analysis, and a warm handoff to human therapists when needed.
3. Define Goal
The primary goal is to reduce the gap between the onset of mental health struggles and the point at which someone receives meaningful support. Translated into product terms:
North Star Metric: Weekly Active Users completing at least one structured wellness activity per week (a proxy for sustained engagement with the product core value)
Business Goal: Achieve a 6-month paid retention rate above 60% within 18 months of launch, validating that users find sustained value beyond the novelty period
User Goal: Users report measurable improvement in self-reported stress, anxiety, or mood scores after 30 days of consistent use
I deliberately avoid making clinical outcomes the primary product goal at this stage. We are a wellness product first. Our goal is to be genuinely useful to the 80% of people who will never see a therapist but still need support, while safely routing the 20% who need clinical care to the right resources.
4. User Segmentation
Mental health needs vary enormously. I will segment users by severity and context rather than demographics alone, because that maps more directly to product needs.
Segment A: The Proactive Optimizer (30% of users)
Working professionals who are generally healthy but want to manage stress, build resilience, and perform at their best. They already use apps like Calm or Headspace. They are motivated by self-improvement framing. Primary need: structured programs, mood tracking, and performance-oriented content.
Segment B: The Struggling Middle (50% of users)
People experiencing moderate anxiety, burnout, relationship stress, or grief. They know something is off but have not sought professional help. Barrier is usually cost, stigma, or not knowing where to start. Primary need: a non-judgmental space to process emotions, practical coping tools, and a sense of being heard.
Segment C: The Crisis-Adjacent User (20% of users)
People in acute distress, potentially with clinical-level anxiety or depression. They need safe triage and a warm handoff to licensed professionals. Our product must not harm them. Primary need: immediate emotional validation, crisis resources, and clear pathways to professional care.
My solution focus will be Segment B, because it is the largest underserved group, the highest commercial opportunity, and where an AI companion can genuinely move the needle without overstepping clinical boundaries.
5. Pain Points
For Segment B (Primary Focus)
Access gap: Therapy costs $150 to $300 per session out of pocket. Even with insurance, the waitlist for a therapist can be 3 to 6 months. People give up before they start.
The 3am problem: Emotional distress does not follow a 9-to-5 schedule. There is no human support available at 2am on a Tuesday when someone is spiraling from work anxiety.
Stigma and vulnerability barrier: Talking to a stranger (even a therapist) about mental health feels intensely vulnerable. Many people prefer to process privately first before they are ready to seek human support.
Lack of continuity: Existing tools are either one-time (a meditation session) or episodic (a weekly therapy appointment). There is no persistent support layer that knows your history and tracks your progress day to day.
Tool fragmentation: Users currently cobble together a mood journal, a meditation app, a journaling app, and maybe a therapy app. Nothing connects the dots or gives an integrated picture of their mental health.
Motivation and accountability: Self-help content is widely available but hard to act on consistently without structure and accountability. People start strong and fall off within two weeks.
