Mobile App Design
It Takes A Village is an exploratory concept app to service those in local communities with limited access to affordable child care. I applied a myriad of user experience methodologies for the initial MVP as a proof of concept.
2015 finalist in the Neighborhood Start Fund Pitch Contest
The Challenge
I started this project as a volunteer opportunity following insights I gained from interviewing parents at a local school in Chicago. I discovered that babysitting services are costly for them- especially single-parent households. In addition, parents struggle with securing personal time for themselves. Over the past few years, there have been incidents of children being left in a hot car while parents shop for goods, or parent would leave children home alone. This concept app is designed to alleviate some of those challenges.
Role: UX Designer | Interaction Designer | Content Strategist
Timeline: 4 weeks
Tools: Pen & Paper, Post-Its, Axure RP
Deliverables: High Fidelity Prototype
Target Audience: Working families and single parents
Project Research
To explore the areas of opportunity for the app, I began with secondary research via online resources to find issues in work/life balance and the effect it has on working families. In addition, I selected three research participants—each with unique experiences—to get a general understanding of their parenting experiences and the value of work/life balance. My goal was to dig a little deeper into their daily lives to uncover pain points and measure the effectiveness of their current structure.
To explore the areas of opportunity for the app, I began with identifying my primary and secondary audience—the average working citizen. I selected three research participants to get a general perspective of their parenting experiences (if any) and the value of work/life balance in this particular scenario.
My goal was to dig a little deeper into their daily lives in terms of work, home life, and personal time. The second half of my research included searching through online resources pertaining to the topic of work/life balance and the effects it has on working families.
Researchers have found that parents are unhappier than their single counterparts in Europe and America. In a study, parents reported that they were statistically unsatisfied with their lives and scored lower in the following areas: life satisfaction, marital satisfaction, and mental well being than non-parents.
Affinity Map
Once the interviews concluded, I used post-its to visually collect and detect each data point using an affinity diagram in which I discovered the following key findings:
- Obtaining help with childcare is difficult and costly for some working parents and single-parent households
- Single parents struggle with securing personal time for themselves
- Having a more flexible schedule is highly desired to meet
Utilizing these insights, I was able to define the scope of the problem and ushered in a design direction.
Problem Statement: Due to time constraints of work, parents find it difficult to manage the demands of work, parenting obligations, personal growth.
Design Direction: Solutions should increase efficiency and productivity for working parents a through community support system.
High Fidelity Wireframes
To quickly address the needs of users and bring my design direction into fruition, I created rapid sketches of what the solution could look like. This was facilitated through a paper prototype using POP.
