Millions Struggled with a Different Health Crisis
During the Pandemic: Mental Health
The Governor's Mandate: Launch a Mental Health Website in 6 Weeks
The Governor's Mandate: Launch a Mental Health Website in 6 Weeks
Washington State faced a mounting mental health crisis during the pandemic with the combination of COVID-19 and state-wide lockdowns--suicides were soaring. The Governor had a mandate for the Department of Health: Lauch a mental health support website in 6 weeks. Because a web team failed after 6 months, the Department of Health scrambled to find a "special forces" design team to salvage
their project.
The urgency and need was so swift, I got a call while working on some other projects from Scott Nazarian who explained the urgency. Because I've lost friends to suicide, I felt compelled to do what I could to help especially when thousands of Washington residents, were hanging on by a thread, according to state information. His one-line pitch, "Can you start Monday?"
Scott and I built the entirety of A Mindful State website together from the ground up, with visual style guides and content from our team's visual designer based in the UK. The effort was Herculian, but worth it.
Can you start on Monday?
March 29, 2021
This "Special Forces" Design Team assembled virtually from around the world. The Visual Designer was based in London, UK, the Principal Designer and I were both based in the Greater Seattle Area, while the Executive Project Manager was based in Santa Barbara, CA.
April 8, 2021
The Visual Designer worked on Site Concepts while I chose the technology stack consisting of Wordpress, theme and plugins for the site. The Wordpress ecosystem of plugins offered support for any unforeseen requirements and facilitated rapid development on a proven platform.
April 16, 2021
The longest section of the project was compiling the personal stories of several dozen state residents that had been impacted by COVID-19 and the state lockdowns. Personal stories consisted of interviews and videos that web visitors could watch and realize--they weren't alone.
April 22, 2021
A Mindful State was half content provided by professionals to offer visitors resources and help. The Experts Section was built first because the content was more readily available.
April 26, 2021
The Personal Stories module was to feature more than 30 people and how they were coping with the pandemic and their lives and stories. The selection of personal stories was to make them relatable and to cover a spectrum of at-risk groups that may be overlooked by resources.
May 10, 2021
The three biggest sections of the website were built and refined in preparation for launch. Site-wide updates were made to include hashtags and to optimize for SEO. The nearness of the launch pressed practical questions. Who was going to respond when someone requested help, and how is that sent to the appropriate person while protecting confidentiality.
May 14, 2021
Approval came for MVP site launch. Additional content would be added to the established web framework as it became available, but an emphasis on action to launch on time, and then backfilling with more content and resources as they became available.
Success
With a coordinated radio, TV and billboard media campaign (I designed the billboards) the site stats went crazy, with 250,000 visitors in the first month following launch.
The web and the assets were handed off to the client for ongoing maintainence and upgrades. Our task was done.