CDC research shows that nationally, about 1 in 8 women experience symptoms of postpartum depression. Is there a way to help women take better care of their mental health? We’ve designed one way to help.
Fill Your Cup App
Helps mothers schedule and track uninterrupted time to focus and rest.
Project Stages
01 Initial Research
Interviews
Affinity Mapping
Competitive Analysis
Survey
Personas
Customer Journey
02 Design & Testing
First Sketches
Wireframes
Feature Map
Low-fi prototype
Moderated Testing
Iteration
Mid-fi prototype
Moderated Testing
Iteration
High-fidelity prototype
03 Evaluation & Further Iterations
Accessibility adjustments
Unmoderated Testing
Further iteration & testing
Handoff to developers
Research
Evidence shows that during recent pandemic one of the groups hit the hardest was mothers. Whether we are talking about stay-at-home or work-from-home mothers, they are facing unprecedented challenge of meeting demands of attending to kids, managing household, supporting their spouse and often working. No wonder that under this load of work we hear things like this:
* Quotes have been taken from an article in New York Times.
Research Goal
The goal of this research is to identify a way an app can help mothers take some load off their shoulders. Our initial guess was that a simple task management app would be needed. But as the research results trickled in, we realized, that another app would be more beneficial and would help solve a pressing need.
Research Questions
[Needs] Is there a need for a simple way to remember everyday things? What are the users’ current pain points?
[Behaviors] What do users do when they need to remember things? Do they use digital tools to help them stay focused?
[Conclusion] Will mothers use an app to solve their problem, or would they rather rely on old-school pen and paper and memory? Is the need pressing enough for them to try a new solution?
Participants
We have held in-depth interviews with 6 participants:
- Mothers 35-42 years old
- With kids ages 3 months-13 years old
- Who have stayed at home with the kids for the last 3 months
To recruit the participants we have used our own contacts.
Next Steps & Recommendations
Create an app that helps moms keep track of what they have done to take care of their mental state today, this week, this months.
It reminds them throughout the day to “fill their cup”, and suggests to schedule activities.
It has game elements to give satisfaction and a smile. A drawing of a glass, that the user can see being filled or being empty based on whether they have given themselves rest during the day.
It has a very simple calendar, that shows (by the intensity of a color (blue), how much self care they have done each day. So they can see when they are slipping off.
Reasons for our recommendations:
Self care for moms has to be planned, otherwise all the other things will take over, and the woman will end up feeling exhausted. It’s easy for a mom to forget about her needs while taking care of others.
Self care has to be consistent in order to fill the person’s cup.
We suggest that using gaming element will take the edge off and make it feel more of a game, than a responsibility.
Affinity Diagram
Sticky notes are color coded based on the participant of the study. Each participant has their own color.
Design: Concepts & Sketching
While working on design we tried to incorporate research findings:
App must be intuitive and easy to navigate with zero learning curve
Highly visual “You see, and you know”. That’s why we came up with the idea of a cup, that fills up with words. User can see how much self-care activities she has done today, and remember what they were. And on some days she can clearly see that there was more or less activities..
Testing & Iterations
Iteration 1.
Iteration 2.
Design: User Flow. Iteration
In order to identify what kind of app flow we want to have, we’ve implemented a variety of techniques. Among which we used “crazy 8’s” to come up with a variety of design ideas.
Final Prototype
We have started with discovery research to identify a problem the users have. Then we moved to sketching and developing low-fidelity prototype in Figma, followed by user testing. After that we have identified the changes that need to be made and create a new iteration, this time in high-fidelity. Then we proceeded to unmoderated user testing with the help of Lookback tool. And create the final iteration you can see on this slide.
Solution & Impact Overview
Even though we had to change direction in the beginning after the initial set of interviews, we were able to create a functional, easy to use app for busy mothers. It allows the user to instantly see whether she has been attentive to her own needs, or she’s been neglecting self-care. With the help of uplifting and encouraging messages we hope that it would be easy for mothers to use this app as a valuable everyday tool.
Chat with me
If you are interested in learning more about my experience, or if you have a collaboration in mind, drop me a line!
camomint@gmail.com
(614) 495-6244