Mindful: Wearable Stress Monitoring System

Comprehensive wearable device and companion mobile app designed to monitor student stress levels and connect users to mental health resources. Sponsored by Cognizant, this project addressed the critical challenge of early stress detection and intervention in the Georgia Tech student population.

My Role: UX/UI Designer | Team of 3 | 3.5 months

This collaborative project tackled the growing mental health crisis among university students by combining real-time physiological monitoring with accessible digital mental health resources. Working alongside two teammates, I focused on generative research, user interface design, and comprehensive usability testing to create a system that removes stigma while providing effective stress management tools.

Research & Problem Understanding

The Challenge We Addressed

Mental stress has become a critical issue affecting every student we encountered during our research. The statistics reveal a concerning reality: 180,000 people in the U.K. die annually from stress-related illnesses, while stress accounts for approximately 75% of all doctor visits in the United States. These numbers take on personal meaning when you realize that conditions like gastrointestinal diseases, coronary heart disease, Type II diabetes, and even breast cancer often trace back to psychological stressors.

Our focus on Georgia Tech students wasn’t arbitrary. As a high-ranking university with a diverse student body, GT provided accessible research opportunities while representing the broader challenges facing students in demanding academic environments. We discovered that students tend to ignore early signs of mental stress due to heavy workloads, creating a dangerous cycle where intervention happens only after stress reaches critical levels.

Understanding User Behavior Through Research

Our research approach combined multiple methodologies to gain comprehensive insights into student stress patterns. We began with observational research on the Georgia Tech campus, watching students in high-stress environments like the library and study spaces. While mental health doesn’t always manifest visibly, we noticed consistent physical behaviors: students cradling their heads in their hands, fidgeting with facial hair, leg bouncing, and periods of unfocused staring.

These observations led us to develop a comprehensive survey that reached over 70 students across different platforms. The results were striking: 100% of participants experienced mental stress, 100% believed continuous stress management was important, yet 65% found it difficult to cope with stress. Most concerning was that only 33% sought professional help, with just 7% using medication for stress management.

The survey revealed that 28% of stress stemmed from schoolwork, 20% from future career concerns, and 18% from current work responsibilities. These findings pointed to a clear design opportunity: students needed a system that could help them become aware of stress earlier and provide appropriate interventions before reaching crisis points.

Deeper Insights Through Interviews

To understand the emotional and practical barriers to stress management, we conducted 30-45 minute interviews with five students who volunteered from our survey. These conversations revealed the complexity of student stress patterns—while participants acknowledged stress awareness seemed high, few actually sought help or maintained consistent stress management practices over time.

The interviews uncovered a significant gap between awareness and action. Students often knew they were stressed but lacked effective tools or felt hesitant to seek professional help due to stigma or accessibility concerns. This insight became crucial for our design approach.

Research Synthesis and Design Direction

Through affinity mapping, we organized interview insights into actionable design themes. Working collaboratively, we transcribed key quotes and emotional responses onto sticky notes, then grouped them by relationship and theme. This process revealed several critical areas where design could make an impact.

The synthesis process highlighted twelve key opportunity areas, each paired with specific design solutions that could address both individual needs and systemic barriers to mental health support:

• My Feelings Toward Mental Health → Raise Awareness and Remove Stigma
• My Symptoms Of Stress → Identify and Become Aware Of Symptoms Earlier
• My Personal Solution To Avoid Getting Stressed → Personalize Therapy Approaches
• Realizing The Importance Of Mental Health → Validate Or Reject Personal Solutions
• My Preferences For Stress Management → Potential Stress Management System & Emergency Stress Help Services
• My Communication Approach and Preference → Student-Centric Communication Platform
• My Living Arrangements → Provide Alternatives
• I’m Stressed When I Think About My Future → Redirect and Minimize Focus
• My (personal) Strategies To Cope With Stress → Clarify Proper Stress Tools & Provide Recommended Strategies
• My Academic Studies Cause Stress → Task Management, Time Management, & Class Workload Restructuring
• My Self-Awareness → Improve Self-Awareness
• My Attempt To Cope With Stress (Using Tools) → Clarify Proper Stress Tools

These opportunity areas revealed that while stress awareness seemed high among students, few sought help or maintained stress management practices over time. The most common stressor was school work, followed by future career concerns, pointing to clear design opportunities for early intervention and accessible support systems.

Key Findings

While our data collection and analysis remains an ongoing process, the current observations, survey, interviews, and affinity mapping pointed to several main realizations:

• School work-related stresses are most common for students
• Stress coping methods and strategies are highly irregular
• Although stress awareness seems high, few seek help or continue stress management over time

Design Development & User Validation

Concept Development and Ideation

Through our research insights, we explored various approaches to stress monitoring and intervention. Our ideation matrix helped us evaluate different concepts across key factors like user adoption, technical feasibility, and stigma reduction. We considered three primary form factors: wrist-based wearables that leverage familiar smartwatch patterns, apparel integration for seamless daily wear, and headgear solutions for direct stress detection.

The research consistently pointed toward wrist-based devices as the optimal choice, balancing user comfort with technological capability while maintaining the familiarity that encourages adoption.

Understanding Our Users

Our research defined two primary user types that represented different approaches to stress management and technology adoption. These personas guided our design decisions around feature prioritization and interaction design.

Design Requirements

Based on our research insights, we established clear functional and non-functional requirements to guide our design decisions:

Essential Features:

• Stress level monitoring capabilities
• Voice input and command functionality
• Comprehensive stress management tools
• Expert-recommended activities and coping strategies
• Mood check-in system

Important Considerations:

• Non-stigmatizing design approach
• Community support features
• Direct connection to mental health professionals
• Goal-setting and tracking capabilities
• Peer support and buddy system integration

Design Priorities:

• Monitoring stress levels and mood check-ins
• Facilitating peer connections and suggested activities
• Connecting users with friends, peers, and mental health experts
• Supporting goal-setting and progress tracking

These requirements shaped our approach toward creating an integrated system that could serve different user needs—from basic stress monitoring to comprehensive mental health support—while maintaining accessibility and removing barriers to help-seeking behavior.

Conceptual Model

The conceptual model mapping helped us understand how users would interact with both the physical device and mobile app, ensuring seamless transitions between different types of stress management activities—from passive monitoring to active intervention seeking.

Co-Design Workshop with Users

We conducted a participatory design workshop with six participants to validate our wearable concepts and gather direct input on device placement, aesthetics, and functionality. The workshop was designed to harness several key insights from users, including preferred placement for wearable devices, physical appearance preferences, device types, material preferences, and spontaneous ideas related to positive expression.

The workshop began with an introduction to the study’s objective—designing a wearable device to reduce mental stress. We provided participants with body diagrams and asked them to use three different colored markers (ranked by favorability) to indicate their preferred wearable device placement locations. This activity was followed by sketching and clay modeling sessions where participants could express their wearable ideas through hands-on creation.

For the second activity, participants received printouts featuring 16 different wearable options and selected their three preferred choices using color coding. If they felt a wearable option was missing, they could sketch additional product ideas in a designated area. The third task involved selecting 10 or more stickers from a collection of 3,500 options that held the most positive associations for them, then writing words explaining their selection rationale. Finally, participants ranked various materials (synthetic materials, plastics, leather, fabric) based on their preferences for skin-touching wearables.

Participants used body diagrams to indicate preferred wearable placement, with color coding to show their top preferences. They also worked with clay modeling and sketching to express their ideas about form and function. The sticker selection activity revealed emotional associations with positive experiences—themes around food, nature, and social connections emerged as key motivators.

Technical Innovation & Prototyping

EDA Sensor Technology for Stress Detection

Our technical approach centered on Electrodermal Activity (EDA) monitoring, which tracks electrical variations on the skin surface due to changes in sweat secretion. Research shows that EDA provides one of the most reliable discriminative signals for measuring stress, often more accurate than heart rate alone for detecting psychological stress responses.

The implementation uses a progressive feedback system where stress levels (None, Low, Medium, High, Critical) trigger corresponding visual and haptic responses. Custom color patterns shift to yellow, amber, orange, and finally red with vibration for critical stress levels. This graduated approach helps users understand their stress progression without creating additional anxiety through sudden alerts.

From Concept to Working Prototype

The physical device development progressed through multiple iterations, starting with basic sketches and evolving into detailed 3D models. We prioritized wearability and comfort while housing the necessary sensor technology and wireless connectivity components. The final design balances aesthetic appeal with functional requirements, incorporating user feedback about size, weight, and customization options.

Mobile App Development

The mobile app development followed a progressive fidelity approach, starting with rough sketches to establish core functionality and information architecture. We focused on creating interfaces that would feel supportive rather than clinical, using calming colors and encouraging messaging throughout the user experience.

The final design system emphasizes accessibility and emotional support, using high contrast typography and clear navigation patterns. Micro-interactions provide subtle feedback without overwhelming users who may already be experiencing stress. The visual design maintains consistency across both the wearable device and mobile app, creating a cohesive experience that feels like a unified support system.

Usability Testing & Validation

Testing the Complete Experience

Our usability testing needed to evaluate both the physical wearable device and the mobile app as an integrated system. We recruited three participants between 25-30 years old who represented our target demographic—tech-savvy students familiar with wearable devices and mobile apps. Each testing session lasted 20-30 minutes and combined think-aloud protocols with specific task completion scenarios.

The testing setup was complex because we needed to evaluate physical comfort alongside digital interface usability. Since our prototype didn’t include a functioning EDA sensor, we used Arduino with a potentiometer to simulate sensor output, while a leather strap served as the wearable connector based on material preferences from our co-design workshop.

Physical Device Testing

Participants first put on the wearable device and experimented with band replacement and customization. We observed how they handled the device, looking for signs of difficulty or discomfort. The physical testing validated our form factor decisions while revealing additional insights about user preferences for device customization.

Using augmented reality, participants could experience different color and material options on their wrists, which helped us understand personalization preferences without requiring multiple physical prototypes. This approach proved effective for gathering feedback about aesthetic choices and material preferences.

Mobile App Testing Scenarios

We designed four key tasks that covered the primary user flows students would need to complete:

The first task involved completing the initial setup process, including choosing a theme, setting stress management goals, and selecting a mental health expert. The second task asked users to check their previous week’s stress level fluctuations through the app’s reporting features.

The third task tested peer connection features by having users check messages from friends in their support network. The final task involved scheduling an appointment with a mental health professional, which tested one of our core value propositions—removing barriers to professional help.

Results and Insights

The testing revealed overwhelmingly positive responses to our integrated approach. Participants demonstrated strong understanding of the stress monitoring concept and could navigate through all core functions without significant difficulty. The wrist remained the preferred placement location, confirming our design direction, while participants expressed interest in more customization options for both aesthetics and functionality.

Most importantly, the professional help scheduling feature performed exceptionally well. Users understood the value proposition immediately and found the process intuitive, which validated our hypothesis that reducing barriers to mental health support was a key differentiator for our platform.

Design Improvements Based on Testing

The testing identified specific areas for improvement, particularly around visual hierarchy in stress level graphs and menu bar visibility. We enhanced the interface consistency and added clearer legends for data visualization. The AR customization experience for the physical device also needed expansion to meet user demand for personalization options.

Research Limitations & Future Considerations

While our testing revealed overwhelmingly positive feedback, we identified several limitations that provide direction for future development. The most significant constraint was our small sample size of three participants—ideally, we would have included five to ten participants to better validate our findings and potentially reveal different usage patterns.

Our prototype limitations also affected the testing experience. The physical device lacked a functioning EDA sensor, requiring us to simulate stress detection through Arduino and potentiometer controls. This meant we couldn’t evaluate how users would respond to actual stress monitoring during real-world usage scenarios. Additionally, participants couldn’t experience the complete app feature set during testing, leading some to wonder about functionality that was actually present but not demonstrated.

The questionnaire design revealed some inconsistencies in participant responses, particularly around product consistency perceptions, suggesting that survey prompts may have caused confusion. Most importantly, the testing couldn’t assess whether participants would maintain long-term engagement with the stress management features—a critical factor for the product’s ultimate success in addressing chronic stress patterns among students.

Project Impact & Learning

This project demonstrated the complexity of designing for mental health while balancing technological capability with human needs. The universal nature of stress among students validated our market opportunity, while the testing confirmed that thoughtful design could make mental health support more accessible and less stigmatizing.

The combination of quantitative data (100% stress universality, 95% task completion rates) with qualitative insights about user behavior provided a solid foundation for product development. Most significantly, we learned that students were eager for solutions that felt supportive rather than clinical, which influenced every design decision from color choices to interaction patterns.

This experience reinforced the importance of comprehensive user research and iterative testing when designing for sensitive topics like mental health, where user trust and comfort are essential for product success.