When Anastasia Kuznetsova of Ready Set Rocket was tasked with designing IntrusiveThoughts, a website for people living with Pure Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, she had to put on her creative thinking cap to evoke the complex feelings and struggles of living with OCD on a homepage. The chronic mental illness, which causes a person to have uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts and behaviors, effects about 1 in 40 adults in the US. The website, led by Aaron Harvey, an OCD survivor and Marketing Executive, provides information and tools to help people cope with mental illness.
Commenting on the unique challenge, Kuznetsova explains: “Since we were building a platform from the ground up, we started by creating a system that felt youthful, bold, unapologetic and provided a real level of understanding into who the OCD sufferer is. Those considerations were the most prominent reasons for selecting the imagery and tone of voice that we did. We didn’t want to sugar-coat the disorder. We wanted to provide a relatable experience and actionable advice. In making that decision, the biggest challenge was finding the right balance between empathy and realism. How can we make a site that is true to a sufferer’s thought process without being too triggering? Riding that line is the key to success.”
