Enhancing the pregnancy journey through community, mental health, and resources
Design for America ✴ UX Researcher and Designer ✴ Winter 2022 - Summer 2023 ✴ Figma + FigJam
Context
Design for America is an organization that empowers students to tackle social challenges through human-centered design.
This personal project, conducted within Design for America at the University of Washington, was born out of the recognition of the challenges faced by low-income mothers. Within this year-long project, I served as a Product Designer, focusing both on UX Research and Design. With my background in women and gender studies and my motivation to apply my skills to design a meaningful solution, my team and I worked to develop a centralized support system specifically tailored to address the unique needs of low-income pregnant individuals. This project is really meaningful to me because it allowed me to build my skills and contribute to creating a solution that positively impacts the lives of marginalized communities.
Problem
Low-income pregnant individuals face significant barriers to accessing necessary treatment, information, and resources during their pregnancy journey.
These barriers often result in unequal maternal healthcare outcomes and highlight the need for more inclusive and accessible support systems.
Solution
Enter Pomegranate, a digital app designed by our team at Design for America, that aims to centralize perinatal support systems for low-income mothers.
The app provides an individualized experience, guiding users through each stage of pregnancy. Key features include a tailored resource hub, a reflection page for personal growth, a community hub for connecting with other moms, and a product comparison and donation registry.
White Paper Research
Low-income pregnant individuals face significant barriers while trying to navigate pregnancy.
Through our secondary research, we delved into the design challenges and barriers that highlight the difficulties low-income pregnant individuals face. We discovered that a lack of information, familial support, and resources significantly hinder the pregnancy journey for this demographic. Existing literature emphasizes that the absence of easily accessible and accurate information, coupled with limited familial guidance and financial resources, results in a sense of isolation and heightened stress during pregnancy for this group.
Competitive Analysis and The Gap
The competition did not effectively balance information and features, leading to overwhelming user experiences and a lack of personalized content.
Our analysis of pregnancy apps like What to Expect, Glow, Ovia, The Bump, and Peanut revealed key insights. These apps often overwhelmed users with excessive features and information, lacked clear onboarding, and struggled to provide personalized content. Pomegranate aims to stand out by focusing on user-friendly design, relevant information, and a consistent visual aesthetic, addressing the shortcomings observed in these existing platforms.
Survey & User Interviews
Understanding the needs of pregnant individuals in the real world.
Our research began with an online survey, distributed through online forums and word of mouth, aimed at engaging our target audience: expectant and recent mothers.
Subsequently, we conducted in-depth interviews with 7 individuals who were either pregnant or had given birth in the past year.
Key Findings:
Resource Challenges: The survey unveiled a striking revelation - 100% of participants struggled to find dependable resources during their initial pregnancy experiences.
Emotional Support Gap: Among the interviewees, 4 out of 7 mothers disclosed a lack of emotional support during their pregnancy journey.
Mental Distress Impact: Alarmingly, 2 participants highlighted severe mental distress resulting from the absence of a support system, underscoring the urgency for more accessible and inclusive resources.
User Personas
We developed two user personas to further identify the needs of our target audience.
Our user surveys and interviews helped us gain valuable insights into the experiences and requirements of low-income expectant and recent mothers, guiding us toward the realization that a personalized, accessible, and empathetic support system is needed.
Design and Ideation
Choosing the best platform and the most important features for our product through generating an affinity diagram and information architecture.
In the design and ideation phase, our goal was to create the most accessible app possible for our target users. We established clear design requirements that prioritized user-friendliness, inclusivity, and simplicity. Through collaborative brainstorming sessions, we generated a range of innovative ideas, considering features like a community forum, resource hub, and personalized reflections to ensure that our product would effectively bridge the gaps in perinatal support for low-income mothers.
Impact and Usability Testing
100% of testing individuals agreed that Pomegranate would have helped them stay informed about their pregnancy Journey.
We performed usability testing with the same interview participants to refine our design based on their feedback. While we didn’t have the chance to improve upon our design just yet, this iterative process made us think more about our design decisions. All of the users we tested with agreed that Pomegranate would have positively impacted their entire pregnancy journey with enhanced usability and satisfaction.
The Final Design
Presenting Pomegranate!
View the complete Figma file here.
Conclusions and Lessons Learned
What I’d do differently next time.
Reflecting on our journey, there are a few aspects I would approach differently.
Data Cleaning: In our initial user survey, using online forums proved challenging due to a significant bot presence, leading us to encounter data integrity issues. From this, we learned valuable lessons about data cleaning and validation techniques, such as incorporating user-specific actions like selecting a specific number or checkbox to verify human responses.
Recruiting: Additionally, I wish we had more time for comprehensive testing and recruiting efforts, as this would have further refined our insights and allowed us to tailor Pomegranate's features even more effectively to the needs of low-income mothers.
Usability Testing: Given our time constraints, we were unable to conduct usability testing, which would have offered invaluable insights into user interactions and potential pain points, ultimately leading to a more polished and user-friendly product iteration.