Development of Online Counseling System and Usability Evaluation

Rising prevalence of mental health diseases is a serious problem for society. Some areas in Asia have no medical facilities and proper mental health care is unavailable. To cope with these problems, application of ICT for mental health services has been recognized as one of the effective approaches. Therefore, we have been studying and putting into practice online counseling for people assigned overseas. We constructed a system using agile software development for those assigned overseas in Asia. The first step involved developing a prototype system based on system requirements after we repeatedly discussed system development with people in charge of a clinic. Next, we conducted interviews about the online counseling system. We also discussed and analyzed the interviews. Finally, we completed the online Web counseling system by repeatedly discussing possible improvements with the clinic and then incorporating the changes in the system. Moreover, we evaluated the system by conducting a survey in the form of a questionnaire. Since we developed an effective online counseling system using statistical methods, this paper reports on the construction and usability evaluation of the system.