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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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:
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:
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.
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.
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.
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:
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 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 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.
Before diving right into our wireframes, we decided on our main features for this concept design based on our users' needs and design requirements.
Then, we created wireframes to show the flow logic and content of each feature in the app.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.