Summary
A team of graduate students from the Institute of Design spent six weeks in Taiwan collaborating with DRIVE, the internal design team and innovation center of Far Eastern Group (FEG), one of the largest conglomerates in Taiwan. They were charged with helping on a project for Far EasTone (FET), the group’s telecommunications arm, and worked closely with two of the company’s vice presidents. By the group’s final week in Taiwan in late July 2024, they had crafted a detailed, well-researched service blueprint and presented it to multiple higher-ups in the corporate structure.
A Service Blueprint for Far EasTone (FET)
The DRIVE team at FEG, founded by Chief Innovation Officer Jeff Hsu (MDM 2012), has partnered with ID since the inception of the Taiwan Immersion Program in 2015 and now employs multiple ID graduates. While the students get an immersive, real-world experience to proudly display in their portfolio, ID Professor Martin Thaler notes that the benefits to the company are equally valuable.
“You can only get that by working on a real project; you can’t get that in a classroom or through case studies. You are facing those decision-making moments in real time—that’s education,” Martin Thaler added.
GOAL
Expanding Digital Health into Mental Wellness
FET sought to branch into a cutting-edge service that is more prevalent in the United States but was just being explored in Taiwan: a digital mental health wellness platform that would connect potential clients to counselors and then continue to guide them on their mental health journey for years to come.
FET already has a digital platform that connects ambulance personnel to hospital physicians; it also has a digital platform for physical health issues, through which clients can connect to a doctor or pharmacy.
But mental health services were another thing altogether and were somewhat more private and stigmatized in Taiwan. Yet FET saw a growing need for it, especially among the Taiwanese youth.
So, how could FET make it easier for people to make an initial connection with a counselor and continue their therapy long-term? What issues would the company face rolling out such a service, and how could they make it successful? Perhaps just as important from a design perspective, how would they define its success?
PROCESS
Translating User Insights into Actionable Business Strategy
The team met with people who had gone through therapy, students, and others who might consider using such a service. They talked to counselors about their own needs. They also analyzed 3,000 survey responses from FET customers.
In crafting the final service blueprint for Far EasTone’s potential platform, the students identified six barriers to counseling and six stages in the user’s journey, each of which had to be subtly handled to keep users comfortably engaged. Doing so required deeper research into which demographics would be most open to telecounseling, the common mental health problems within that demographic, and an analysis of the competitive landscape.
OUTCOME
Integrating Mental Health Services into Existing Digital Ecosystems
Their solutions included using FET’s existing Health+ app to reach customers where they were, not forcing them to travel; providing bundled services and tools to provide structure for clients; making it easier to find a counselor through a vetting system; and developing ways in which the app could facilitate a long-term service journey.
The students included all of their findings and recommendations in their service blueprint, which included outlines of design principles and a demo of their proposed service, displaying a mock client who was attempting to utilize the app for the first time. They then presented all of their findings to multiple vice presidents before presenting them to FET’s president, Ching Chee.
TEAM
Students
Han Wen (Vanessa) Chang (MDes 2024)
Bhavani Shivaram Prasad (MDes 2025)
Samantha Chandra (MDes 2025)
Faculty & Project Sponsors
Martin Thaler, Professor of Product Design
Jeff Hsu, Chief Innovation Officer, Far Eastern Group