We bond
We bond is a community app, a safe place for worried working parent app design boost up your parenting skills and confidence by connecting and hearing others’ stories like you.
Project Type: Brainstation UX Design Capstone Project
Timeline: Jan-Apr 2022, 8 weeks
Role: Solo, UX Researcher, UX/UI Designer
Tools: Figma, Invision, Photoshop, Procreate
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Project Overview
The COVID-19 crisis has caused drastic changes to most parents’ work lives and other responsibilities. Millions of adults have lost or are forecast to lose their jobs permanently; many more have stopped work temporarily For most parents, school and childcare closures have meant that children are at home, and requiring care, for at least an extra six hours a day.
About the app
I have built an ios app that allows the working parent to connect with another parent through stories and people that are going through similar circumstances.
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Project planning
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These are my goals for this project and this is what I want to achieve
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Secondary Research
Primary Research
Problem Space
Personas
Experience Map
Opportunity Selection
IDEATE
User Stories
Task Flow
PROTOTYPE
Low-Fi Wireframes
Mid-Fi Wireframes
Usability Testing
Incorporating Feedback
Hi-Fi Wireframes
PROTOTYPE
Low-Fi Wireframes
Mid-Fi Wireframes
Problem space
Emphasise
Secondary Research
Working parents with school-aged children are twice as likely to be furloughed due to the coronavirus outbreak. Studies show working parents are 13% more likely than those without children
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of mothers are suffering from burnout with an increase in mental health. As a result, the dynamic between the couples is being affected due to constant arguments.
For most parents, school and childcare closures have meant that children are at home, and require care, for at least an extra six hours a day.
The COVID-19 crisis has caused drastic changes to most parents’ work lives and other responsibilities.
Millions of adults have lost or are forecast to lose their jobs permanently; many more have stopped work temporarily
Assumptions
These are my assumption which I used then craft my interviews to verify them.
lack of time management and a system available for both parents to manage and share tasks suitable for their lifestyle.
Mother believes in not having enough support from their partners and lacking resources and self-time to recover from a mental burnout.
The average parent in the UK can not afford a baby seater to employ a baby seater to help them work at peace.
Most parents do not know the source of their mental burned out.
Interviews
I conducted my interviews based on the assumption you have just seen, and here is the result.
Interview candidate and requirement
Three candidates, location zoom,
These interviews help me understand user pain points, motivation and motivation being working parents. To also see if my assumptions were correct or not.
Age: 25-44
Man and Woman
Recording not mandatory
Location: London
Jessica is 25 years old
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Works in a call centre for Volkswagen as a sales assistant from home. The type of person who wants to achieve academic success and lives with her partners.
Alexander is 30 years old
Works for apple as a marketing agent. A father with a newborn baby. The type of person that likes to spend time with his daughter but is also unsure of how to deal with the baby.
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Nicole is 40 years old
Married and a mother of one who works for an investment bank.
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Interviews Synopsis Result
Interview structure- open to allow the user to express their experience.
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Key insights
Priority concerns
Miss understanding
Fear of losing their job
Chosen Theme
Priority concerns
Priority concerns
Often, time parents tend to be extremely concerned, about their priorities as they feel guilty for not giving their best in raising the child.
Avaluation
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They have all expressed their fear concerning their parenting methods trying to take care of both work and raising the kids which l which leads to mental burnout and a change of attitude at home.
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"Being a working mom makes you feel guilty a little bit but it. And then you will have that thought in your mind, maybe I'm not doing enough at work."
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How Might We
Give parents confidence in their parenting skills to help reduce negative mental health effects and to improve the dynamic at home?”
During the interviews, I have learned that my user’s main issues were based on fear lack of community, support or someone with whom they can relate to their struggles or learn from as they feel isolated with no one to speak to or learn from. Considering they are always busy.
I authored 30 different user stories while maintaining my user's needs mind helped me identify a core epic.
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Define
After conducting secondary research and user interviews, I crafted a persona that represents my target users. This helped me build empathy with my target users and to stay user-centred while identifying opportunities where I could help solve the problem with a digital design.
Ideate
I created these use stories based on functionality and feature to help design my Epic.
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Avaluation
Now I have explored my user stories and task flow I know that I need to map out what I need to build the task flow.
User's opjective.
As a parent, I want to listen to working parents' stories regarding their experiences So that I can gain insight into other individuals are handling the situation.
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User story and Epic
This epic helped me design my task flow, focusing on my person's goals, motivation and pain points.
Primary Task flow
Find a working parent's online community for support and guidance.
Sketch Development
Article page
Objective
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Exploring a range of design layouts using my UI inspiration board. This process helps me figure out the best design concept to take forward in my wireframe design development.
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Full Article Design Display
Objective
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Full view of the article design. Finding the best layout and functionality of how the user can view the content in full, for both listing and reading if needed as you can see the screens are much larger than the normal or the intro article
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Calander and booking system
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Objective: Again, using the same method as before, following my user task flow design structure as she tries to reach out to the author.
Confirmation page
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Using a different design layout, I was aiming for something more visible and easy to read keeping my persona's needs.
Wire-frame
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I used my sketches and translated my sketches into a mid-fidelity grayscale wireframe to create my mid-fidelity prototype: Version 1.
Test
Usability test round 1
After completing the wireframe, I conducted a usability test to evaluate the functionality of the design, content and I wanted to see if the feature added was helpful to the user to accomplish their goal
Easy changes
Add the enter buttons? labels such as password and email address and forgot my password/
Easy changes
Clarified whom I am doing 1-1 with?
Easy changes
Question page: Texet are too small!
Brand
Visual Identity
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After completing my user testing and grayscale design, I begin to gather keywords that will help enhance the user experience based on the brand's objective. How do I want my user to feel while navigating through the app?
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To do so, I create 14 keywords that represented the brand Identity and objective.
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Bond/ Support/ Heart/ Connection/ Welcoming/ Determination/ Community.
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Friendly/ Bravery/ Inspiring/ Interactive/ Boldness Freedom/ Minimalistic
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Wordmark
While exploring the brand name and Icons I used a range of names and played with different fonts and sizes trying to make something unique, also something that will represent the brand's identity by just seeing or reading it.
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After many design experiments, I created one that I believe to better represent the brand in both meaning and design style.
Refined Desing
Applying brand Identity to the design. After finding my brand style alongside user testing, started to inject new concepts users into my new UI board. I was looking for something simple and minimal with interactive features.
High-fidelity
High- fidelity We bond's main feature
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This layout demonstrates the journey of the user to find a relatable story on the exploring page and type to listing to the story.
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Design system
After establishing my brand Identity I began creating a design system to help create consistency across the whole design aspect.
Autom design
Colour
Typeface
Accessibility
Product marketing site
Web- development sketches
Brand expansion
Next steps
Next steps
We aim to further the marketing of We bond expand the feature and create a space for more community, categories and groups.
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Key Learnings
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Throughout this experience, I have learned so much more than I expected. I have learned how to prioritise my user, understand their needs and be able to design thoughtfully, remove my biases and stay user-focused.
I have learned the importance of asking why through each step, relating everything to my HMW, persona and Insight to clarify my next steps.
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