MyBubble

The mobile social app that helps moms find, connect, and engage with other moms in the form of support groups
Duration
3 months
Team
Doris Amouzou, Aayahna Herbert, Akash Talyan, Rishi Thulasiraman
Role
UX Designer, User Researcher
Skills
User Personas, Qualitative Coding, Paper Prototyping, Wireframes, Heuristic Evaluation, Task-Based Testing

Overview

Our team explored how moms can practice sustainability without adding more effort to their hectic daily routine. Because most baby products are non-reusable, moms rarely get the chance to practice sustainability in their everyday life. The primary way they practice sustainability is through upcycling and secondhand shopping of baby clothes, but most only accept secondhand items from people they know and trust - usually those in their "support groups" such as friends, family, and other moms.

While expressing their happiness with support groups because they can get advice and help from other moms who have been in their shoes, they sometimes have a hard time finding a support group with other moms separate from their loved ones because they have trouble staying up to date on current happenings in large support groups and can feel left out from the group due to a lack of common interests.

The Goal

Help first-time moms learn and gain more access to sustainability to enhance their lifestyle and daily routine.

01  |  Discover

user research

To learn more about our problem space, our team did an initial literature review to research the common goals, general characteristics, and different types of moms and a task analysis and design space critiques of existing apps and websites that help moms in a similar manner we wanted our final design solution to help. This preliminary research helped us better understand our target user group, clarified our design goal, and shaped our user research process.
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For our user research process, we began by designing a screening survey to scope out our targets users and get access to users willing to be interviewed and then conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with different types of moms in our target user group to talk one-on-one about motherhood to understand their main priorities as a mom and for their kids, what factors motivate their spending habits for themselves and their kids, and what are the social elements and motivations that influence how they share and buy items.

user characteristics

We analyzed our research data with an affinity map to organize and highlight our user insights and focus areas of the design solution. From our analysis, we determined our users' needs and pain points concerning motherhood, shopping, and sustainability:

hierarchical task analysis

In addition to our affinity map, we did two hierarchical task analyses to explore the process mothers typically go through to buy and give away their children's items:

design requirements

Having a complete understanding of our users' needs and characteristics by this point, we were able to establish the requirements and design implications our design solution needed to include. From the many design requirements, we focused on three of these requirements for testing and evaluations:

01

Connect Moms to Support Groups

The solution must incorporate a way for mothers to continue to feel support from the ones they trust and not feel overwhelmed by the groups by having more control over how interactions are made.

02

Easy to Learn & Simple to Use

The solution must be simple to learn and use and consist of an interface that seems recognizable/familiar to users so that it is easy for them to use.

03

Safety & Privacy Options

The solution must allow users to choose what they feel comfortable sharing. This will rely on the user to trust the design, especially when they control what information gets shared about themselves and their children.

02  |  Ideate

brainstorming

Our group then began brainstorming ten possible design solutions that would successfully meet the design requirements but wouldn't overwhelm users. To develop ten ideas during our brainstorming session as a cohesive team, we set a time limit, refrained from judgment, built off of each other's ideas, and did not speak over one another. Once we established some guidelines, we started the brainstorming process by revisiting our affinity map and "walked the wall," adding our design ideas based on our user research data and findings. This process allowed us each to come up with multiple unique ideas without worrying about groupthink or constricting our creativity. After a few minutes, we regrouped and shared our design ideas until we had ten solid ideas and made concept sketches for each one:

storyboarding

After revisiting the design requirements, we narrowed our possible solution to two design concepts that met our design requirements from different perspectives and created storyboards for them.

MomMe Time

MomMe Time is a calendar app that moms can use to put in their daily routine activities, like getting themselves and their baby ready in the morning, cooking meals, working, and getting ready for bed. The app will then provide tips and recommendations to help the mom user relax based on gaps in their schedule.

MyBubble

MyBubble is an app to help moms find other moms with similar interests and kids around the same age in their area. Matching with another mom will add that newly matched mom to their bubble and let them talk with them about anything: setting up playdates, hanging out, or asking for advice about motherhood, for example.

After reviewing our user findings and both design ideas and weighing their pros and cons, we decided to move forward with MyBubble since it satisfied the majority of our user needs and design requirements, making it the best design that could address our users' needs while showing them various ways to practice sustainability in a group setting.

03  |  Create

main features

Before diving right into our wireframes, we decided on our main features for this concept design based on our users' needs and design requirements.

1. Home feed
A central place to ask, answer, and view questions and post content in their personalized community of moms they can trust.
2. Find and connect with other moms
Users can find and connect with other moms based on their location or similarities in interests, lifestyles, and more information shared in their profiles and can send and receive requests and keep track of them.
3. Create and view events
Users can create, view, and RSVP for public or Bubble-only events near them that might interest them and their children.

wireframes

Then, we created wireframes to show the flow logic and content of each feature in the app.

flow logic 1  |  create and view posts
After setting up their profile and logging in, users are brought to the main screen of the app: the home feed screen. Here, users can see posts from other moms in their bubbles. These posts contain events, questions and advice, videos, photos, and more. The user can create a post by tapping the floating button in the bottom right-hand corner of the home screen. By tapping on a post on their feed, the user will get more details and descriptions depending on the post type.
flow logic 2  |  find and connect with other moms
Once their profile is set up, the user can connect with other moms to create unique support groups. To help find them make intentional, meaningful connections with others, users can use filters such as location, similar interests, and similar lifestyles to exclusively see moms who share similar interests or lifestyles or live near them based on the interest tags they have chosen. Suppose they'd like to learn more about another person. In that case, the user can view a person’s bio, interests, and any information from their private setting that they chose to make public such as their location, age, occupation, and more. Through this feature, the user can see pending bubble requests they have sent to other moms and the requests other moms have sent to them. Once a bubble invitation has been accepted, users can message one another, see each other’s posts, and more.
flow logic 3  |  create and view events
With this feature, users can create and view events created by users in their bubble and public events from other users they may not have in their bubble. The users are shown recommended events based on their interests and mutual friends who plan on attending these events and can also see events they have created and plan on attending. In regards to creating events, there are three types of events that can be made: a garage sale to sell and buy any secondhand items, a meetup for moms to get together for occasions, and a DIY project for moms to practice sustainability as a group by working on DIY projects that use recyclable everyday household items.

04  |  Test

user feedback & prototype

Once the wireframes for the main features were complete, we conducted a cognitive walkthrough to determine if the flow logics were easy to follow and straightforward while still satisfying our user needs and discover any accessibility and usability issues that may have been overlooked or gone unnoticed by our team and previous feedback sessions. After finishing the session, we made a few design changes based on their feedback and created a high-fidelity prototype.

Home Page

The home page serves as a feed filled with posts and events to catch users up on what they've missed. The posts are sorted based on the hashtags used, created and shared events, and posts made by people in the user's bubble. They can also engage with other users’ posts by liking and commenting on a post or RSVPing for an event.

Search Page

The search screen allows the user to search across the entire app for events and posts by typing in relevant keywords. The user has the option to filter their results to see events, posts, or activities exclusively.

My Bubble Page

My Bubble page allows the user to connect with people based on location or similarities in interests, lifestyles, and more information shared in their profiles. The user can send and receive requests and keep track of them. Once people have been added to a user’s bubble, the user can send messages to the members.

Events Page

The events page lists the events happening around the user's area sorted by relevance. RSVPing moves an event to the “My Events” tab. Each event card includes a brief description of the event along with the details of who is attending the event that they know.

Settings Page

The settings page is where the user can edit their profile and modify their privacy settings, among other settings and general information about the app.

evaluations & iteration

Once completed, our prototype was ready for another round of evaluations to assess the overall usability of our design and interface and ensure our app met our three main design requirements. We conducted a moderated, remote task-based testing with four participants. Based on the feedback from those sessions, we iterated our design to make it more consistent and uniform format-wise across all pages.

© 2022 by aayahna herbert