Digital health as an industry while exponentially growing in breadth, has not lived up to potential thus far in actually being able to produce meaningful positive health outcomes.

This research project explored the applicability of user-centered design as a methodological approach toward the decline of digital health. Stress amongst university students was the context used for the design process in order to carry the research out through a full design cycle.

The user-centric nature of the project meant the involvement of university students who were currently attending Auckland University of Technology within the design process. A set of methods and phases within the cycle were employed at the start of the research but were ultimately changed and adapted to accomodate the complexities of stress amongst university students. In particular, the psychological and non-physical nature of stress had significant limiting implications on certain user-centered methods, lowering the effectiveness of those methods. To account for these implications literature surrounding stress and stress coping were constantly reffered to and used to inform methods.

As a result of the full cycle user-centered design process used within this research, a stress related digital intervention prototype was the final output. The prototype is a mobile voice user-interface that aims to provide university students an informed perspective on their stressful situation.