Designing a product with mental health issues in mind

It seems to me that’s exactly what they are doing. These are details of particular features yes, but that reveals that it is something they are thinking about as part of their culture.

As well as that, it’s important to focus on how that culture would actually result in Monzo’s product/service being implemented otherwise all you have is a wishy washy corporate statement that never translates into actual results.

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Great to see that thought is going into these features, it’s not something that one would ever expect to see from a traditional bank.

I am hopeful but skeptical that this kind of thinking will continue well into the future as Monzo becomes a full bank and starts to face more pressures from customers, investors and inevitable corporate bureaucracy. What comes to mind is Google’s slow slide away from their ‘don’t be evil’ ethos.

Still, a good sign and a good example to set for the industry!

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As an investor I can assure you we are just as interested in seeing Monzo continue this committment to serve the needs and accessibility requirements as non-investors. There are many people who other banks pay lip service to with some policy statement, but Monzo can live and breathe that committment rather than cast it in concrete only to dust it off now and then to show they tick a box. I trust Monzo to remain true on this, but will happily raise it in meetings if they show signs of letting this fall by the wayside

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Well done, Monzo, on speaking out about your commitment to inclusive design. Designing for people with diverse needs can often cause controversy, because for many years these needs weren’t considered by brands. Not even the basics were there. If you remember table layouts, images of text, moving and flashing objects, Flash, ‘accessible’ page versions, lack of semantics, etc.

I hope you continue to consider people with different needs in your designs. The best way to achieve this is to involve them in research.

If you’re starting with a commitment to mental health, you can run a dedicated research round to understand more about people who experience such issues. You can start with workshops as already suggested, but from my experience the most powerful insights will come from interviews and diaries, which you can follow up with.

Keep up the good work!

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I forgot to say, I’m sure that many people with visual, hearing, cognitive and motor impairments will be delighted to have a bank that’s easy to use and adapts comms to them. Remember to include them in future research too…

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That’s a great point, Hugo (Monzo’s Head of Design) is very keen on getting this right too -

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Im sure Monzo won’t stop at mental health issues , My friend takes blind and partially sighted people out for walks during the week and they call for a drink at the end of the outing which they like to independently pay for with their bank card - they have to trust the cashier that they are being charged the correct amount at the POS - would it be possible to link contactless payments / Chip and pin payments to a voice notification of how much the amount is - turned on or off by user choice ? - it would make their lives so much easier - 360,000 registered blind or partially sighted people in UK who have to rely on somebody else sight for the amount taken from their account to pay for things

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This is great idea! Since Monzo shows notifications realtime, it can ‘say’ amount paid just when payment is taken. Ideally, transaction amount would be verified before purchase, but that would require changes in all terminals, right? Changes in Monzo alone seem more straightforward.

This made me realise how unfriendly POS are, I’ve never heard POS say out loud the transaction amount and it never crossed my mind. Keypad is workable, but transaction amount is really a pain point.

Zander was recently interviewed from this story, which includes some great examples of how Monzo’s existing features have helped a user with depression manage their money :thumbsup:

It’s great to see that some of the Monzo team are going to be at the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute’s TechSprint event aka hackathon, along with the FCA, some legacy banks & another start up next week.

The ‘TechSprint’ will bring together tech developers for two days, working in teams alongside mental health experts, to develop new and innovative tools to help people with mental health problems manage their money.

I’m looking forward to see what they come up with!

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I expect I’m just jumping the gun here but it’d be great to hear more about what the team designed at this hackathon, will there be a post about this?

Edit - I expect we’ll hear a lot more about this event during the panel for the March open office -

https://community.monzo.com/t/open-office-march-our-first-panel/7760

https://twitter.com/mmhpi/status/842074518889869325

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Following the blog post, here’s a short presentation from @zancler on the same topic -

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Being the partner of someone who suffers with mental health issues I think you are very wrong with your response and these features would be welcome by me.

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For anyone who can’t make it to the Open Office this evening (now sold out :frowning:️) we will be streaming live here from 7pm

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Please do more of these. :joy:

Interesting today that the winners of the Starling Bank hackathon were a team with an entry targetting mental health issues. Their entry flagged up increases in expenditure on shopping etc.

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Some very interesting ideas, and I hope they see the light of day.

Unfortunately, the most useful thing Monzo can do for me, as somebody with Bipolar II, is something that you are already doing, but plan to stop doing soon.

I am subject to the type of late-night spending sprees that you mention (although I hardly ever make individual purchases costing “over £100”, more often many many purchases costing £10 or £20). The best solution I have found to this is to give my wife control over top-up of my card, so that I have a hard limit (unfortunately I rarely know what this limit is, as giving my wife control means that I am unable to see my balance on my own phone).

I contacted Monzo to ask whether I would still be able to use my card in this way once you become a bank, and sadly the answer was no: Monzo is too busy trying to “build the best current account in the world” to be able to keep safeguards like this in place for people with bipolar disorder.

In light of the fact that Monzo will soon be removing from their card the one safeguard that people with bipolar have, I find it hard to take seriously your claim that you are “designing a product with mental health issues in mind”.

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surely your wife being able to freeze your card if its a current account will be the same control she has now on top ups - if she wants to control your spend and in effect make you think whether your card is frozen or not before your purchase you won’t know when she is ready to freeze it and you would be more “careful” with your spending - sorry don’t know much about bi polar , correct me if Im wrong but it would seem the same control that makes you think before purchase at the moment ?

Not the same at all.

With hard spending limits, my wife is able to say “I’ve put £20 on your account, that’s your limit for today”.

With a frozen card, I don’t have anything to spend today. So how do I buy my lunch?

You also make it sound like it’s a game, my wife trying to “make me think” my card is frozen so that I’m more “careful”. It’s not a game, or some kind of trickery as you imply. It’s a working cooperatively.

I can assure you that I am always thinking before purchases, that’s not the problem.

again not wanting to get into an argument or imply its a game - you can work co operatively with your wife in what I consider - maybe wrongly - to be the same as her saying Ive topped up £20 on your card today for lunch just the same as I will freeze your card at £20 today when you reach that on the phone that you have asked her to control your card spending by top ups - maybe Im wrong I was just trying to see a way around using current accounts for you - not to attack you