Overview
When it comes to childcare, It can be daunting to find someone you can trust. That's why at Sharenthood, security is their number one priority. Every parent is screened and verified so you can take back your time and keep your peace of mind.​
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"We're putting the "share" back into parenthood."
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Role: UI Designer / Visual Designer
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Timeframe: 3-week sprint
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Team Members: Elizabeth Wu, Jazmin Hidalgo, Jonathan Gonzales
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Tools: Figma, Slack, Zoom, Maze, Google Drive, Pen and Paper
Methodologies: Agile, Double Diamond, Interviews, Competitive/Comparative Analysis, Information Architecture, Affinity Mapping, Persona Development, User flow, Site Mapping, Journey Map, Storyboarding, Pen and Paper Sketching, Low-Fi to High-Fi Wireframing, Prototyping, A/B Testing, User Testing, MSCW Map.
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Client Introduction
When meeting Sharenthood's CEO and client, my team and I sought to expand on her vision of what Sharenthood's social app could entail. We began by asking about her vision, and ended on specific wants and needs of the market at hand. The most important points to be made were:
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Do parents want to speak with one another?
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What are the most sought after features needed on the market today?
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How can you feel connected with parents on the other half of the world?
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Would a social platform for parents to learn collaboratively be something to consider?
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Research
Survey
A survey was conducted to better pinpoint the demographic used for conducting the research moving forward. Parents of children under five, were asked questions about their communication preferences, style of parenting and their thoughts on the existing social platforms currently on the market.
Interviews
From the list of surveyed parents, I proceeded to gather more qualitative research. Parents with children ages 1 through 11 were further interviewed, giving them a chance to speak freely on their social circles, if any, and to reiterate on their style of parenting.
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Some questions that were asked were:
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What’s your process for solving a parenting challenge? What resources do parents use?
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How do you build relationships with other parents?
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What social circles are you a part of, if any?
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The Affinity map was used to synthesize the data into more digestible points. This ensured that any information gathered by each of the teammates was closely inspected and paired up with similar challenges or concerns.
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Here are the patterns that emerged from the Affinity Map session:
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As a busy parent of two, I need an app that is easy to use so that I don’t have to spend time learning how to use it
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I want to feel understood by other parents going through similar challenges so I don’t feel isolated and so I can get advice that I can agree with
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I want to feel safe sharing information about my challenges as a parent so that I am not putting my family at risk
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I want to filter for groups based on my unique challenges so that I don’t feel like I’m wasting my time on irrelevant issues
"I" Statements
How Might We... help parents with similar parenting challenges, build a safe and nurturing community?
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Persona
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I created a persona to better illustrate the typical wants and needs of the parents interviewed, as well as help the user navigate through the next steps. The persona was designed to better illustrate the difficulty a busy parent would have when a parenting issue emerges.
User Flow
Design
Sketches
Taking a few minutes for each screen, my team and I sketched out what could be the important screens to consider and a small indicator of the functions within it. Below, you can view my three most ideal screens to keep in mind, as well as a few button functionalities.
Main Page V1
Parent Profile V1
Main Page V2
User Testing #1
Using Maze as our usability testing platform, the team and I developed a series of tasks to understand if the pathway through the app we've envisioned for our users, was understandable and pleasant, and what we would need to improve. Here are the tasks at hand:
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Find and sign up for a scheduled, synchronous video event on teething
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Confirm a meeting with a nanny through direct messaging
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And find an audio clip about Managing Tantrums in their saved section
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From this initial usability test we learned that :
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Users were confused about getting to the the audio clip section, which was represented by a telephone icon
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They were also unclear on the navigation bar icons. They suggested labeling would be helpful
With both of these suggestions in mind, I switched the phone icon to a more recognizable mic icon and labeled the navigation bar icons to avoid confusion.
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User Testing #2
For our second round, we tasked users with:
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Completing the sign-up process
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Searching for, and saving an audio clip
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Looking for that clip in their Saved section
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Creating and posting some written content to the forum​​
We discovered that:
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The filtering icons and age range buttons on the top navigation bar of the browsing pages were too crammed, confusing some of our users
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We also realized that there were accessibility issues with color contrast when it came to some of the interactive buttons
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Changes consisted of hiding the filters in a drop-down menu at the top of the screen, as well as run the colors through an accessibility plugin, to ensure that colors were up to WCAG Standards.
User Testing #3
During our third and final round we asked users to:
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Block a user named Josh, from their profile
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Browse the Topics section to find one relevant to a parent helping their teen apply for college
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Look for an audio recording explaining how to handle tantrums for toddlers
Our biggest issue during this usability test was that users had a hard time finding Josh’s profile on the "Discover page". To help them navigate through this, I turned the “See All” text next to each section in the "Discover page" into a button, by framing it for better visibility and understanding that it was clickable.
Style Guide
A style guide was also created, keeping Sharenthood's original colors in mind, with the addition of a few complimentary colors to adjust to the concept.
Illustrations were kept within the color guide, and icons were kept thin and simple as to not overwhelm the user.
Reflections
Within 3 weeks, my team and I were able to take an existing website concept, understand the pain points of a specific type of user, in this case, parents with children under five years of age, and conceptualize, test and iterate a research-driven app, designed to help parents connect with one another. When thinking about the additional features to be added in the near future, a MSCW map was generated, and few key points were highlighted. Those points were:
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How are we showcasing “experts” in the app? Certified expert recognition?
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Calendar view for meetings/events.
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Moving up in the ranks would give you access to other features like hosting video events/parties?
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Enable comments on links and audio clips.
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With the ideas above, we hope to advance Sharenthood's Social App even further, expanding, reiterating and testing, to ensure each user need is met.
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Thank you so much for reading, feel free to check out my other work, below!
