Case study
Behavioural Research · Mental health · Adolescents · UX
Adolescent Mental Health Evaluation
Overview
Commissioned by a school board to design a large-scale adolescent mental health evaluation system from scratch — covering everything from the survey students used to the analytical framework that made their responses meaningful.
Key metrics
- Built 0 to 1
- 5,000+ students evaluated across schools
- 100% independent completion across all age groups
- 0 post-launch redesigns
- 3 days → 1 day screening time
- First evidence base for identifying at-risk students — and anticipating who might need support next
Problem
- Schools were reactive — identifying students in crisis rather than understanding the population beforehand
- No structured way to measure wellbeing at scale or direct limited resources effectively
- No population-level analysis beyond screening — no visibility into what was actually driving risk
- Users aged 10–18 vary enormously in reading ability, language comfort, and willingness to disclose
- Any platform that didn't account for those differences would produce data that couldn't be trusted
My role
Lead end-to-end platform building and research:
UX Research & Design
- Gathered stakeholder requirements with the school board
- Designed surveys and digital platforms
- Conducted iterative usability testing with 10 adolescent participants
Research Analytics
- Developed a screening methodology and generated individual participant reports
- Built a statistical analysis pipeline in R for school-level reporting and insight
How it worked
Two parallel workstreams made the platform possible — designing something adolescents could actually use, and building the analytical framework to generate reliable and actionable insights.