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LESLIE WITT, CHIEF PRODUCT & DESIGN OFFICER, HEADSPACE HEALTH - DESIGNING FOR HEALTHY OUTCOMES (NOT JUST ENGAGEMENT)

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SEASON 2, EPISODE 17

LESLIE WITT, CHIEF PRODUCT & DESIGN OFFICER, HEADSPACE HEALTH -
DESIGNING FOR HEALTHY OUTCOMES (NOT JUST ENGAGEMENT)

 

 

 

The United States is in the midst of a mental health crisis. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, one in five adults in the U.S. experiences mental illness each year. And yet, only about half of those who need mental health care receive it – often because of a lack of access to affordable, quality care. Increasingly, people are turning to technology to feel better. But, how do you design health tech to be as effective as traditional mental health care? And where does generative AI fit in? We explore these questions and more with Leslie Witt, Chief Product and Design Officer at Headspace Health, one of the world’s largest digital mental health and wellness platforms. Headspace Health has brought together the popular Headspace app for mindfulness, meditation, and care services from its merger with Ginger in 2019, which provides personalized mental health support, coaching, and therapy. Headspace Health has been used by over 100 million people in 190 countries. Leslie talks about the company's mission to make mental health care more accessible and inclusive; the opportunities and challenges of designing and building digital products for mental health and wellness; and the potential of large language models and generative AI to revolutionize our relationship with mental health care.

Having design fundamentally connected to product leans us more in the space of desirability and, with it, the customer.
Leslie WittChief Product and Design Officer, Headspace Health

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE TO LEARN:

  • The areas where product and design intersect, the inherent tensions between the two, and how to balance the two to keep products both desirable and feasible
  • How large language models and generative AI have the potential to address some of mental health care’s biggest challenges
  • Why one of Leslie’s favorite principles of product and design is “beneficence” ensuring that a product actually helps the user, not just creates engagement
  • How Headspace uses a framework for responsible AI built around seven core principles to address challenges around explainability, bias, and oversight
  • Why we need to be intentional, careful, and safeguarded in the deployment and oversight of AI at the organizational, tech industry, and societal level 
  • How Headspace balances innovation and experimentation with guardrails and “safety salons” to protect against catastrophe
  • The danger in making the blanket accusation that technology is itself a culprit for the decline in mental health (counterpoint: it’s all about concrete use cases)
  • What Leslie’s background in architecture taught her about the similarities and differences of designing for the physical versus the digital world

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