Overview
UX/UI Design Team: Yvonne Y., Annabelle C. and Jacob L.,
Tools: Figma
Timeline: 5 weeks
Breastfeeding is beneficial to a baby's long-lasting health, however, it is one of the hardest parts of raising a baby due to numerous obstacles mothers have.
Problem Statement
Low-income Hispanic mothers have been found to have the lowest rates of exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) due to a diverse range of barriers. These barriers are:
• Insufficient breastfeeding education
• Lack of breastfeeding technical support (i.e., latching issues)
• Returning to work
• Easy access to free or discounted formula milk from women, infants and children program (WIC)
• Lack of social support
• Erroneous cultural belief that mixing formula and breastmilk (los dos) are best for the babies
• The misplaced shame associated with not successfully BF
• Physical pain
The solution
This app will consist of the following innovative tools:
• Chatbot system to provide virtual peer counselor support
• Asynchronous and synchronous communication tools to facilitate lactation
• Providing rewards that are contingent on remotely observed breastfeeding (uploading an image). This is to encourage mothers to continue to breastfeed.
• Breastfeeding time tracker
• Virtual peer mother-to-mother support forum
This breastfeeding app sets itself apart from others by offering an incentive program and 1:1 support from a lactation consultant.
User Research
The benefits of breastfeeding go beyond infancy and into adulthood. Breastfeeding has been shown to support balanced nutrition, boost immunity, and reduced the risk of certain illnesses like breast cancer, ovarian cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes. The World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) recommend breastfeeding for the first 6 months with continued breastfeeding at least through the first year of an infant’s life.
Personas
My team and I developed three personas based on our interviews for:
1. The working mother
2. The new mother
3. The Lactation Consultant.
Our team focused on the working mothers’ journey because it is the most vulnerable user population. We decided not to focus on the other users' profiles in order to narrow our scope of the problem.
Journey Map
My team and I mapped out a working mother's journey from conception to 6 months of age in order to understand where and why she would engage with the app.
Storyboard
Through our interviews, we discovered that breastfeeding can be very physically and emotionally demanding. These emotions are represented in our storyboards which evoke empathy and help us focus on what's important.
Wireframe sketches
Sketching helped our team ideate and brainstorm the potential direction of features, concepts, and screen designs.
Sitemap
This project had a large scope that required many features. Creating a sitemap helped us visualize the hierarchy and information architecture of the app.
Mid fidelity wireframe
Usability Testing
I was able to test our prototype with 4 breastfeeding mothers who were excited about the app's new tools.
Test insights
• When asked to upload an image to earn rewards the call to action on the home screen was not clear enough.
• When pressing save to save the breastfeeding time it was not clear that it was saved. The experience needs feedback confirming it has been saved.
• It's important for mothers to have the option to add breastfeeding time manually in case they don't have their phones while breastfeeding.
• For the support group onboarding, It was not clear the order of operations because the topics of support groups and join group buttons were present at the same time. The groups should show up as you click the topic.
• It would be helpful to have the option to quickly turn on and off the Audio Prompt feature.
• Add tabs for files, images, guidelines, and topics on the support forum page.
• Mentioned that the Chatbox icon looks similar to the Community icon.
Improvements
Retrospective & Next Steps
This project was a great collaborative experience with an eclectic team working together to accomplish a common goal.
There was a demand to design several experiences for the app. Our team couldn't sufficiently deliver all experiences within the allotted time. As a result, we could have used several more weeks to develop one to two core concepts.
Moving forward, breastfeeding is a sensitive subject due to its emotionally intimate nature. This makes it hard to engage with mothers when prompting them to upload their breastfeeding images to earn rewards.
In the future, I would like to explore pairing the apps’ voice prompt feature to a virtual assistant and smartwatch technology i.e. Alexa and Apple watch. This would make tracking and listening to guided assistance easier while holding a baby.
This problem is important. This app provides credible information and a supportive community that can change the way mothers view breastfeeding.
