Reach Out is a speculative application, designed as a mental health and mindfulness resource for anyone under the care of the NHS.

The application allows users’ to speak directly with professional therapists, advisors and specialists during times of struggle, as well as connect with other users in their area in safe meetup locations. Inbuilt is an augmented reality feature, highlighting meet-up locations and other users with their consent.

The pandemic highlighted the importance of interaction with others. Reach Out was designed as an accessible solution to the impacts of Covid on people’s mental health and loneliness.

A series of mindfulness exercises are built into the application to improve users’ overall mental health on a daily basis. This includes visually guided breathing exercises using calming animations, a twice-daily gratitude practice and grounding exercises to help users be mindful and present in the moment at any point in the day.

Inspired by artists Yayoi Kusama and Olafur Eliasson, elements such as color and sound were carefully considered to create a calm experience for each user.