Kinder App:
A friendly and easy to use mobile app that connects moms with communities of peer parents and provides engaging activities for their kids on a day-to-day, week-to-week or recurring basis.
My role: End to end product design: Initial user research, competitive research and analysis, information architecture, wire framing, visual design solutions, branding, production ready screens for the initial MVP launch.
User Research & Analysis:
I conducted a field study of 12 users, who are all moms of toddlers/preschoolers and compiled informative survey sheets for each. I learned that all moms often feel overwhelmed and alienated in their journey and want to feel more support from the "village".
Working moms: Feel guilty for being away from their kids so much. They spend most evenings and weekends with their kids and want this time to be very meaningful and filled with memorable moments. These moms are less concerned with budget than time, and especially quality time.
Stay at home moms: Often feel disconnected from other adults. They miss adult conversations, and at the same time they want to fill their kids’ lives with fun and enriching activities. They are typically already enrolled in organized activities such as Kid Gym and Art Classes, but they'd like some more laid back activities to fill their days on a moment's notice, so they can bring their kids together with other moms and relax with a coffee or a picnic and make long lasting friends.
Common factor? Both groups of moms want to find activities quickly through a single channel, as well as meet other moms that are similar to them, to have a sense of belonging. Most moms feel overwhelmed with the various channels they are currently using to find kids' activities. They often need to use other channels for finding activities and connections for themselves. Time for online searching is very limited for both user groups.
Based on the user research, data and analysis, I created two user personas.
User Routes:
I studied the various channels both user groups are currently using, noting both the mental models they are accustomed to and also the pain points. I developed red routes that users would take when using the Kinder app, and created wireframes.
Low Fidelity Prototype:
I created a low fi paper prototype and tested it on five users. This helped identify potential problems, as well as enabled me to remove elements and add useful functions early on. I then reworked the hand sketched prototype and created a Marvel LF prototype for one more round of user testing.
What I learned:
Not all moms are familiar with Tinder, so… I have to be more obvious with what they should do and possibly remove "swipe left" and "swipe right" behavior. Trying “going” and “not going” at the bottom, with arrows can work better.
Moms want a list. I wanted to keep this FUN and CLEAN, but they want to see a list of events FIRST.
Some users want to see content in the app before spending time to enter their information, so I should include “SKIP” option in the beginning.
User profile should be added after LogIn, not during, to avoid drop offs.
Not all moms want to link to their phone calendar, some prefer the events to remain within the app. Offer to synch.
In the case of a sudden toddler tantrum or another reason for canceling an event the user created, there should be an “abort” button so others can be alerted.
User should be able to access “their” events and “saved” events.
Add a guest limit to user created events.
Style:
At the same time as testing low fi prototypes and perfecting user routes and flows, I was compiling competitive research and creating stylistic mood boards for the Kinder visual design. I played with various styles, shapes and ideas for the logo mark, developed a system of color usage, and determined the appropriate typography for using throughout the app.
Based on the user and stakeholders' feedback for the research and mood boards, I designed the logo and continued tweaking stylistic ideas for options of the app look and feel.
We landed on a clean and simple aesthetic, with friendly and fun "toddler-friendly" colors that moms naturally gravitate towards at this stage in child rearing. For this user target, we eliminated unnecessary details from the visual design as well as app behaviors that require user learning. Just simple and elegant.
Colors • Typography • Logotype:
Visual Design Options:
User testing was done once again, for the visual design style. This part was trickier as it is largely a matter of taste and the breakdown was nearly even! We went ahead with a combination of user favorite detail elements to create the final version, in a very clean design style.
Final Visual Design:
MVP:
All of our users preferred mobile (iOS), so we went mobile first. The MVP is the simple yet very functional mobile app. The next step is creating the desktop site, and once the second round of funding is received, we will revise further.
Learnings / Phase 2 Improvements:
Don't try to implement coolness factors like swipe left and right just for fun.
Add child’s nap time in settings.
Add a “Friends” option.
Ad a "Share Event" option.
Add “Hosting” to Saved Events.
Add Mom to Mom messenger.
Consider creating icons for PlayDates and Create.
