A Conceptual User Experience Daily affirmations App for New Mothers
A. Context
Given the transformative nature of becoming a new mother, it's common for new mothers to feel overwhelmed and mentally exhausted without sufficient affirmation regarding their motherhood journey.
Mama application is designed to cater and offer support to the new mothers' mental wellness through daily affirmations that will help in keeping them grounded.
Reason: Being a new mother comes with it's own challenges and most new mothers tend to focus more on the new born, neglecting their own mental health.
Goal: The target was to have a 30% engagement from new mothers with them writing and saving affirmations that resonate with them.
Role: User Researcher, UX Designer Category: Health & Wellness
Duration: 9 Months
B. Research
To help me better understand the perspective of new mothers, I recruited 3 new mothers who were willing to share their experiences through phone interviews.
I conducted further research to inform design decisions along the way to help with the ideation process.
Method: Interviews, Open Card Sort, Affinity Mapping, Journey Mapping, User flows, Task Analysis, user personas.
Key Insights
Scrolling from one app to another just to feel inspired and affirmed as a new mother can be overwhelming.
Affinity mapping for data collected from user interviews
1. Personalization Over Generic
Generic affirmations may not apply to what new mothers are going through in that moment hence the need for personalization which will reflect their unique emotional needs and states.
2. One App for Everything
The postpartum period encompasses a wide range of needs like remembering their doctor's appointment. New mothers recognize this diversity and seek different apps to address their specific needs which is overwhelming for them.
3. Ease of Use
New mothers Barely have the time to learn how an app works and so having one that is familiar and easy to use reduces the mental load for them.
4. Need to Connect
New mothers expressed how lonely it gets while raising a new born with little to no time to meet with other new moms. Having a community where they are able to share motherhood experiences can be a source of motivation as well as getting resources to learn more about their mental health as new mothers.
C. Crafting a Solution
Mapping the User Journey
The reason behind mapping the user journey was to create a visual representation of the processes new mothers in different situations go through in order to accomplish a goal and to create a narrative document. The journey maps sketch out the different touch points, interactions, emotions and pain points that a new mother may encounter along their journey.
Possible Solutions
From the gathered information obtained from new mothers , there were main features that stood out the most despite having two categories of new moms (i.e., Stay-at-home & Working moms); Writing their own affirmations, logging in doctors' appointment and getting reminders & educational material on postpartum mental health.
As a result, I mapped out pages a new mom would interact with to achieve these goals.
1. Writing their own affirmations
User Flow
As a new mother, I want to write and save affirmations that resonate with what I'm feeling so that I am able to always go back on them when I need to.
Task Analysis
Entry point: Open the app
Success Criteria: Save her personalized affirmation- Opens App
- Goes to “Homepage”
- Selects “Pre-written affirmations”
- Selects “Create affirmation”
- Save to “My affirmations”
2. Logging in Doctor's Appointment
User Flow
As a new mother, I want to be able to log in doctor's appointment for me and my baby and to get reminders so that I reduce the anxiety of not remembering.
Task Analysis
Entry point: Open the app
Success Criteria: Logging and setting a reminder for her & her child’s healthcare appointments- Opens App
- Goes to “Homepage”
- Selects “Calendar”
- Picks a date
- Enters appointment details
- Sets a reminder
- Saves
3. Educational Material on Mental Health
User Flow
As a new mother, I want to educate myself on postpartum mental health to be able to manage postpartum depression.
Task Analysis
Entry point: Open the app
Success Criteria: Bookmark her choice of educational material
- Opens App
- Goes to “Homepage”
- Selects “Insights”
- Selects Articles or Blogs
- Picks an Article or blog
- Bookmarks
To have a clearer picture of the different features that the app would have, I conducted an open card sorting session with 6 participants.
The results of the open card sorting session informed what different terms meant to new mothers and where they would intuitively find different app functions.
With this knowledge, I was able to draw up a site map for the entire app.
Site Map After Open Card Sorting Session
D. Mobile Designs
Most moms spend a lot of their time on their phones and therefore I decided to focus more on the mobile design as compared to desktop designs.
Paper prototypes, low-fidelity & mid-fidelity prototypes assisted in the first user testing with new moms while using simple terms and ensuring familiarity with the navigation within the app to reduce the mental load.
Paper Prototype for Personalizing affirmation
Paper prototype for Logging Doctor's Appointment
E. Testing the Prototype
Although faced with challenges due to geographical reasons, I conducted usability testing with 6 participants with a majority of them being from Africa.
I asked the participants to complete some tasks based on different scenarios within the app.
User testing with one of the new moms
Test Results
I divided the findings obtained from new moms into categories i.e., Observation, Errors, Positive & Negative quotes.
Based on the findings, I analyzed the app's usability and they also informed the possible design solutions.
1. New moms found it difficult to locate where to write their own affirmation. With that in mind, the design was iterated on so that it was easier to locate where to write affirmations.
2. New moms had difficulty logging their doctor's appointment. New moms got confused on where to touch so that they could key in their dates and details for appointments. Therefore, this informed the usability design and to make it more intuitive and clear enough for new moms without causing frustration.
Although the difference might not be huge, Further usability testing proved that new moms found the usability after iteration easier.
3. New moms confused log in with sign up since they barely pay to much attention while on their phones, most of them got confused and suggested that it would be clearer without having to focus so much on the terminology.
F. High Fidelity Prototype ( Final UX & UI Designs )
G. Learnings
1. Usability testing and iteration of a product is a never ending process
There will always be something to improve on when it comes to user experience. Therefore, usability testing comes in handy to make sure that the product is still meeting the user needs.
2. Be ready to let go of some design decisions
Mama app has gone through many design versions and although it was a challenge to let go of the 'original idea', I had to. Continuous improvement of Mama app based on user testing was the goal.
3. Experience over 'Beauty'
Being a UX designer entails that I prioritize the usability and functionality of a product before anything else. This ensures that when the UI bit of it comes into play, users are already sorted with a good product experience.
H. What's Next?
1. User Testing
Further user testing will be conducted to gather feedback from new mothers on the high fidelity prototype.
2. Iteration
From the gathered feedback and consultation from the stakeholders, reiteration of the app will take place to improve the usability of the app and also to improve on its UI design.
Final prototype created with Figma. Use this Link to view.
Thank You!
Get in touch with me :)
Mama App Prototype GIF
