There was an opportunity to work with the Ourpillar startup on new features to be added to the already existing Ourpillar app….

Summary

Our pillar is a free digital support network for happier, healthier mums.

It’s a startup based in east London and it mainly focuses on currently pregnant moms and also moms who have just had a baby. It aims to support moms who are going through emotional roller coasters and are prone to postpartum depression. The app also enables moms to connect with other moms who are in similar situations.

We had the opportunity to add a health and mood tracker that will help moms monitor and follow their journey through motherhood. The team at Ourpillar will also have the opportunity to connect moms to appropriate support services based on the data provided.

Design Process

Competitive Analysis Research:

Before anything else, we decided to look at competitor apps to see what is currently available on the market for new moms.

We looked at the apps: Ovia pregnancy, Glow Nurture, Daylio, and similar

• We found the design was cluttered & it was hard to navigate

• The focus was on socializing, sharing, support, trackers

• Mood trackers within the apps provided limited functionality

• All the apps focused mainly on pregnancy, but not on a postpartum period which happened after the mom gave birth

User Interviews:

After the competitor research, we had to focus on users and their thoughts.

We conducted interviews with 14 moms/pregnant moms and came up with some very interesting insights that differentiated from the business needs of our client.

Affinity Mapping & Synthesis:

We did collaborative affinity mapping …

… and came up with the following insights:

• users had mostly a positive experience during and after birth

• users had a lots of different feelings, doubts, and fears

• they have the need to communicate and to have support during their journey of motherhood

• users are not interested in tracking (time consuming)and journaling

• users are interested in recording milestones (events, notes, photos)

Persona:

From there we developed a persona called Jess who would be our key target user. We identified her goals and pains.

Experience Map:

To get a deeper understanding of what type of journey our user is going through, we created an experience map for Jess which follows her through her journey from the time she found out she is pregnant to the moment she gives birth.

We noticed that Jess was going through a period of consistent low after giving birth, and we felt that was the area to focus on.

But we also wanted to focus on the times when she was going through periods of happiness, like when she was connecting with other fellow moms or when she was getting contractions before giving birth.

Problem Statement:

As a result, we came up with the following problem statement:

Moms and moms-to-be need a way to understand the new journey they’re are going through and know they are not alone, because it might be an unfamiliar and overwhelming experience.

We asked ourselves How Might We:

• make expressing and sharing feelings a safer place for moms?

• help women understand and embrace their new journey?

• encourage moms to reflect on their personal journeys?

We came with the following hypothesis statement:

We believe that by encouraging moms and moms-to-be to record and share their milestones and feelings they will be able to embrace their new journey.

We will know this to be true when our Pillar community grows in both active and committed users.

MVP - Minimum Viable Product:

Collaboratively we used the MoSCoW method to decide on which core features to focus on our initial design ideas.

We decided to focus on the following MVP features: Milestones/Moods, Notes, Calendar.

Ideation & Design Studio:

We decided to set a meeting with our client and do design studio together.

We applied the Crazy 8’s technique which is a core sprint method for sketching out quick ideas for initial wireframes.

We picked three ideas: timeline, mood selector, milestone presets.

User Flow:

We have then created a user flow for the scenario where Jess woke up at night because her baby started kicking for the first time. Jess would like to record this milestone and share her experience to get some recommendations from other moms like her.

Site Map:

We created a site map to highlight the MVP features we wanted to focus on for now before starting with our wireframe sketches.

Wireframes:

We came up with the initial wireframe designs. As it can be seen in the wireflow, Jess has access to her own personal timeline where she can record her milestones. She then proceeds to add a moment and another page pops up where she can select from preset milestones. Besides choosing a preset milestone, she can also create her own milestone by assigning a mood to it with a smiley, and she can preview her entry before publishing it.

Paper Prototyping & Testing:

After a round of paper prototype testing, the following problems arose:

• the user wanted to see an overview of the timeline without scrolling through it entirely:

• the preset moments were unclear, there was no text in the boxes and the users didn’t understand that they had to chose a preset:

• The smiley emotion slider was vague, users didn’t know what mood would present itself if they moved the slider back and forth:

• the preview page for the entry was a step too much and the user had privacy concerns as this entry was really private:

Hi-Fi Digital Wireframes — 1st Iteration:

After we implemented these changes we came up with the Hi-Fi Digital Wireframes. We created a calendar as an overview of the timeline, where the user can toggle back and forth between milestones timeline and calendar. The entry page featured both the milestone entry and asking other moms a question all on one page. We also inserted some text in the milestone preset boxes where now the user was able to choose from specific presets for moments and thoughts

Guerilla Usability Testing:

We decided to take our Hi-Fi Digital Prototype and do some Guerilla testing with moms outside in public. We did about 7 usability tests and came across the following observations :

• users were delighted by the smileys, the feature was well-liked

• there was positive feedback on the calendar, users thought it was an important feature (they themselves used a calendar feature to put in doctor appointments or shopping lists)

• users were concerned about the privacy of their entries, they didn’t like that the moments’ entry and the question to other moms were on the same page

Final Hi-Fi Digital Wireframes - 2nd iteration:

We decided to tackle the still existing privacy concern and proceeded to separate out the private moments’ entry and asking moms a question.

On the timeline page, the user is now prompted to ask a question and it pops up as a separate window from creating a moment.

Once the question has been submitted, the user receives a prompt that the question has been submitted and will be soon reviewed by other moms. In the navigation bar the user sees a notification that the question has been sent.(there was also a concern which arose from the usability testing as in where the question was going after it has been asked).

Style Guide:

We decided to use the existing style guide of Ourpillar.

We opted to keep the Monserrat Font, in regular and bold.

We decided to stay with the simple and clean color scheme of Ourpillar.

Final Mockups:

At last, we came up with the final visual design of the new Ourpillar app features.

next steps:

Our next steps would be:

• to test the existing product in conjunction with the new features

• to elaborate on adding different types of moments (appointments, milestones, ..)

• the feature to add photos to moments

• to attract a new target group -which would be the new mom’s partner/husband/the new dad