Moms' Cafe
A social media app for moms to form their own village.
Key Skills
Research, Surveys, Interviews, Affinity Mapping, Empathy Mapping, Persona, User Stories, User Flows, Sketches, Wireframes, Hi Fidelity Prototypes
My Role
This project was done solely by me as part of the Springboard’s UI/UX Design program. I was responsible for the end-to-end design as a UX Researcher, UX Designer and UI Designer.
Timeline
SEP 2020 - JAN 2021
Context
Project Background
I know how difficult it is to be a full-time mom and raise kids without any support. Shortly after leaving my family and friends in Turkey and moving to the US, I gave birth to my second child, 6 weeks premature. While my husband was working long hours, I was alone with two kids without help or support. Now I want to help moms form their own community/village where they can find the support they need.
The Problem
The Solution
‘It takes a village to raise a kid’ (African proverb)
Being a mom and raising your kids is very hard and challenging without any support. And especially if you are a stay-at-home mom, there are times when you don’t have adult conversation for days and it is very probable to feel isolated, lonely and depressed.
Moms’ Cafe is a social media app where moms can find like-minded moms for friendship and support each other. They can form groups based on their location or interests, add friends, chat, ask questions, share their motherhood journey and carry their relationships outside the social media if they like.
User Group
Moms’ Cafe was designed for moms who need the company of like-minded moms and any kind of (informational and/or emotional) support.
My Process:
Design Thinking
Research
Secondary Research
I read some academic studies, news articles and personal blogs. All of them show that one of the most common problems moms face after having a baby is under-socialization. Also, I browsed through the posts in Facebook mom groups and saw that many moms have the same challenges. From the secondary research I learned that:
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According to the survey conducted by the motherhood publication Motherly, 85% of women feel that society does not do a good job of supporting and understanding mothers.
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The Centers for Disease Control reports one in eight women suffer from depression before, during, or after pregnancy.
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Further research by UCLA shows that in times of stress women heavily lean on social contact, with ‘befriending methods ranging from talking on the phone with relatives or friends, to such simple social contacts as asking for directions when lost.’
Primary Research
Screener
After completing the secondary research, I moved into my primary research with a screener and sent it out to find interview candidates. I received 87 responses.
One-on-One Interviews
I conducted five one-on-one interviews to get some quantitative data from moms whose kids were below 16 and who used the internet sometimes/ often and always to get parenting support. Below are some guiding questions I asked to the interviewees:
Guiding Interview Questions
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What are some difficulties that you face while taking care of your kids?
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What kind of support do you mostly need while taking care of your kids? (informational, emotional, instrumental)
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How do you use the internet to get parenting support?
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Do you have social media accounts? Where do you primarily look for parenting support?
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Are you a member of any social media groups that are specifically for parents? Do you share anything there? (Do you ask questions? Do you respond to other people’s questions? Do you share any frustrations, worries, proud moments about your kids?, etc)
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What do you think about meeting someone in person after meeting them online first?
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Are there any apps that you use for parenting support? If yes, what do you like most about them?
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What might be some ideas to improve these apps? What do you think is missing?
Define
Thanks to the user interviews, I gained multiple insights about the problem. Then it was time to put together all the information I gained during the Empathize step.
Affinity Mapping
I went over the interview recordings and wrote down my insights and some quotes from the interviewees. I used a different colour post-it for each interviewee. Then I grouped them. After a few groupings I made 7 different groups based on the common pain points of the interviewees.
Common Themes
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Online mom groups: All of the interviewees have used an app or joined an online mom group to get some parenting support.
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Common challenges: Most moms have similar pain points such as finding a babysitter, finding play pals for their kids, not having like-minded mom friends who have kids at the same age as their kids, finding age-appropriate social activities for their kids, especially during Coronavirus.
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Facebook groups: Most moms are members of local Facebook mom groups and think they are very useful.
Key Insights
After reviewing all this primary and secondary research, I have come up with five main insights.
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Moms feel lonely and unsupported especially if they don’t have any family support.
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Being a mom in a new city/neighborhood is a lot harder as both moms and kids don’t have any friends.
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Moms mostly appreciate emotional support from like-minded moms because they feel understood and accepted.
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Moms have a lot of questions about parenting and need other moms for answers and advice.
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Digital communities help moms to share both emotional and informational support.
Affinity Mapping
In response to the affinity maps, I started to build up user types. I was able to dive deeper into the potential users and organize my observations and insights to empathize with their challenges, goals, thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
2 user types emerged from the interviews and 1 user type emerged from the secondary research. I created empathy maps for each user type.
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These three user types have different experiences but their most common pain is feeling lonely while raising their kids.
Personas
I turned these three empathy maps into three user personas.
Design Considerations
Trust: We have to ensure the design is trustworthy, supportive and joinable.
Community: There will be a focus on allowing users to connect with one another to build connections with like-minded individuals with similar interests and lifestyles.
Communication: We need to make sure users feel encouraged to communicate easily to find the kind of support they need.
Defining HMW Questions:
And then I translated these insights into How Might We questions. The first question is the main question that includes the other questions as well.
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How might we provide (emotional and informational) online support for moms?
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How might we help moms get socialized with other moms?
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How might we eliminate/reduce feelings of isolation and loneliness for moms?
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How might we help moms share their questions and experiences?
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How might we help moms find local social activities/events for their families?
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How might we help moms find friends for themselves and play pals for their kids?
Ideate
User Stories
After defining the problem and offering a solution, I thought about how the users would use my product and created user stories to identify the functional needs of my product. I listed the essential tasks for my minimum viable product (MVP).
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Site Map
Now that I identified the main tasks that the users would like to do, I had a basic idea about the general appearance of the app. Based on these user needs and my goals, I prepared the initial map of the app.
User Flows
From there, I created the user flows based on the red routes I identified. The first red route is signing up and creating a profile for a new user. The second red route is creating a post and creating a group in the feed section.
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Sketches
After I created all the red routes, user flows and map of the app, I started to sketch my ideas on paper. Sketching helped me gain an insight on what page settings would work before designing it digitally. I included the login/ sign up pages, creating a profile, feed, chat and profile pages.
Login Page
Create Profile About You
Create Profile Your Kids
Ideate & Testing
Sketches
Next, I created a prototype from these sketches. I used the Marvel app for the prototype.
Guerilla Usability Testing
I conducted 5 guerilla usability tests with the prototype I prepared from my sketches to get some initial feedback on designs I have made. I asked the participants to do some basic tasks such as signing in, posting something, creating a new group, and editing their profiles.
Wireframes
The feedback from the 5 guerilla usability tests fed into my wireframes. As the next step, I prepared the low fidelity wireframes using Sketch. Considering the user feedback, I incorporated some changes as I translated my ideas from sketches to wireframes.
UI Designs
Before creating my high-fidelity screens, I had to determine the visual language I will use throughout my product so I created a style guide. I wanted the app to be entertaining, caring and supportive.
Style Guide
Usability Testing
1st Round of Usability Testing:
After creating the high fidelity screens, I prepared an interactive prototype using Invision and conducted moderated usability tests. The purpose of the test was to assess the usability of the interface design. 5 moms participated in the first round of tests. The tests were held remotely via zoom. The sessions captured each participant’s navigational choices, task completion rates, comments, overall satisfaction and feedback.
Key Insights from the First Round of Usability Tests:
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‘Add friend’ button is small and not very clear. Some participants couldn’t see the icon at first glance. We need to design it in a more clear way.
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We need to add ‘Privacy Policy’ and ‘Terms and Conditions’ parts under the ‘profile’. Some participants looked for them.
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Design the ‘sign up’ button on the very first page bigger and more clear. Most participants couldn’t see the sign up text link on that first page.
2nd Round of Usability Testing:
After the first round of usability testing, I discovered some usability issues, solved those problems and iterated on my prototype designs. Then, I conducted another round of moderated usability tests with 5 different participants. Still, I discovered some more usability problems. I iterated on my prototype again and changed some parts based on the user feedback.
Key Insights from the Second Round of Usability Tests:
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Adding a profile photo can not be skipped but some users don’t want to add their photo before using and trusting the app. So add a ‘skip’ text link on that page and let the users skip it if they want.
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Participants couldn’t decide what to write for the bio page. Give some questions or a short sample text in the bio box which will disappear when they click in the box.
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On the ‘your kids’ page, the title is above the page and doesn’t attract a lot of attention. Some users thought that it was about themselves not their kids. Write a short instruction or use an illustration just above the text entry so users can understand this page is about their kids.
High Fidelities
What I Have Learned
This was my first end-to-end UI/UX Design project. I have learned a lot from this project.
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First of all, I understood that user research is very important. Screeners, interviews and usability tests are the best way to learn user insights and to improve user experience.
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Checking the best practices and applying some standards to your design is a good way to increase user experience.
Next Steps
Marketplace:
A specific marketplace where moms can buy and sell second-hand baby/kids’ furniture, toys, clothes, etc. can be added.
Babysitter:
Although moms can ask each other for help/advice to find a babysitter on home page (feed), for the next step there might be a specific ‘finding babysitter’ page where moms can look for a babysitter and babysitters can look for jobs.
Social Events:
Moreover, users should be able to find some family-friendly social activities based on their locations.