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GuideMe - An App for Parents
Case Study - 2022
About this Project
With the rise of nuclear families and demanding work schedules, many parents struggle to balance work and family life, leading to limited quality time spent with their children. This lack of guidance and support can negatively impact the development and well-being of children. To address this issue, we aim to create a solution that provides support to working parents in providing the best care for their children. As a starting point, we have discovered a UX prompt online that will serve as the foundation for this project. The goal is to ensure that children receive the love and attention they need, even if their parents are busy with work.
Design Prompt - Shikha is a housewife living in Delhi with her daughter and husband. Shikha took a break from her corporate job to look after her 3 years old Aarya. After her husband goes to work in the morning, she spends most of her time with her daughter. Aarya is a curious kid. She loves to play mobile games and watch YouTube videos all day long. Although Shikha is trying her best to prepare Aarya with English alphabets and numbers before, she enrols her in a nursery school, but Aarya hardly takes interest in books. You are a product designer. Help Shikha prepare her daughter for an early school.
Duration Allotted: 2 Weeks
Tools Used: Notion, Figma, Figjam
Role: Product Designer
About the Final Solution
This app is a helpful resource for parents who are seeking advice and support. The app allows parents to ask questions related to parenting and receive answers through voice notes and text from experienced guides. In addition to the Q&A feature, the app also provides opportunities for parents to attend events, have personalized one-on-one sessions with parenting experts, and attend informative seminars. With its user-friendly interface and variety of resources, this app is a valuable tool for parents looking to improve their parenting skills and navigate the challenges of parenthood.
Dissecting the Problem
The parent must be anxious about her child’s development because the child is not actively being attentive to her parent
There can be other options that we can explore other than the parent to teach the kid necessary skills
Maybe expanding the horizons from the home environment could be helpful?
Although timing is not mentioned in the prompt, that is something that can be further explored
Learning routes need to be explored for the betterment of the kid
Who can impart the best knowledge to the kid is something that needs to be explored
Mapping our User
Based on our prompts, we need to lay down certain assumptions, expectations and learnings about our users.
Assumptions
The Child does not need any special needs
The Child has developed all motor, behavioural and other skills
The primary caregiver is a Stay-at-Home Parent with no other work responsibilities
Parent is handling only one child at the moment
Expectations
The parent wants to have the child ready for school
The playschool would expect her child to write and have basic skills
The Toddler would be playful and energetic and hard to manage
Learnings
Shikha being a stay-at-home mom would imply a decrease in financial strength of the family
Aarya spending more time on her phone instead of learning could imply a deficit of attention by shikha even after spending the whole day with her
There might be some frustration on shikha’s side when aarya doesn’t use books to learn
Defining the Problem
There were two ways of looking at the project prompt - From the Child’s perspective and from the Parent’s perspective. When I started to dig deeper about the problem during research is when I realised that most available solutions are for the child and there are no services/products for a parent. In our case, if you look closely, even though shikha is available full time for her child, the child seems to be more interested in her phone which might be revealing other issues that shikha might need to be resolving. Taking this hypothesis further, I decided to focus our product on helping the parent first.
"A Parent who feels anxious about their kid not learning properly for an early school needs to motivate the child but faces resistance from the kid who seems uninterested in books"
Conceptual Stage
After the ideation stage, I got to the drawing board and created an initial set of designs to flesh out my ideas into a visual deliverable to get some initial feedback from few colleagues that would help us refine it further.
Onboarding
Onboarding is divided into two parts. A user when they create an account can use both modes of operation, however one at a time. They can either be a parent or be a guide. Switching can be done easily through the profile section.
Joining as a parent - This mode will be used by parents when they would like to ask questions or need counselling about any issues from other guides
Joining as a Guide - This mode can be used by guides who would want to answer questions posted by other parents
Ask Page
Since our problem statement is more towards the parent, we’ll be focussing on the parent side of things. As such, Ask page is the first screen that appears when a user logs in as a parent. This has been mainly done to encourage asking questions from the get-go. There are 2 modes of asking questions - Either by typing or by voice. Voice model has been used to replicate the mental model of users who prefer to speak instead of typing.
In the Voice model, user would have to hold the button in the middle (it can also be locked by sliding up, animations for that have not been designed). Once, the user starts speaking, his speech would be transcribed in real time. Transcription is being used to gather key points from the user’s statements which in turn would be used by AI to classify the problem into its respective buckets. Once, this is done, a post screen appears urging the user to post the problem.
In the type model, everything remains the same except the need for transcription and bucketing of problems
Once the problem is posted, These buckets would help distribute the voice note/message to respective Guides based on the information posted on their bio. (For eg: if a bucket of problems are related to the education of a child, the recording would be sent to guides who have mentioned education as their expertise in their respective bios)
Profile Page
Profile page consists of few things - Edit profile information (Name, Birthday, and Email ID), It also hosts the Help/FAQ section and signing out can also be done from here. Apart from these there are few key things in the profile section.
Number of Questions Posted/and Number of Answers received can be viewed from here
Gratitude is a concept I borrowed from the real world. This app does not use a friend request model instead follows a gratitude-based model. Whenever a user gets an answer from a guide for the question they posted, if it resonates with them, they have an option to thank the guide for this advice. When they do this, they are automatically added as a close person to this user. This allows special privileges like - Directly sending personal requests to the guide.
Home Page
All recordings/Text messages are stored in the home page section. It can be searched using the search icon. It can also be added to favourites using the kebab menu in the top bar. Unread/unviewed answers are indicated in red. Users can also block a guide using the kebab menu. Upvoting and downvoting would reflect on the performance and rating of the guide.
Initial Feedback
Upon getting feedback of the initially designed screens with few colleagues, I got some insights from a different POV which helped me understand what was lacking from the initial design.
Home Screen - Ask Page
When asked about this page, one feedback that stood out was that they felt blank when coming to this page. It felt confusing as to what should they be doing here and what should they be recording and how to go about this. Apart from that, it felt very empty as if its incomplete
Summary Page
This page felt too cluttered for them and they felt it was difficult to focus on what’s important in this section. Also, in the “post my question” section, it felt unnecessary to ask the users who would they want to send this question to because their focus would be on getting answers instead of finding people to answer them. Also, the way it was displayed lacked context about who these guides were.
Recordings Page
One key problem pointed by them in this section was the lack of visual separation in this page. It was difficult to differentiate at first glance which information mattered and there was too much importance given to the image of the guide. Although it was done to emphasise the human nature of the response (i.e. the responses received by the user were from a real person) it overshadowed the core idea - Getting your questions answered.
Final Solution
The previous design served as a starting point for a conversation on the direction and functionality of the app, and provided valuable feedback on the user experience. With this feedback in mind, the new design focuses on both functionality and aesthetics, creating an intuitive and visually appealing experience for parents seeking advice and support.
Ask me Page
On first launch the app provides an overview of the app's features and services, helping parents understand how to use the app and they can also access tutorials about the app. We also have a chatbot styled questionnaire to pinpoint specific parenting problems and provide tailored recommendations and solutions.
Question Page
Once a question is asked, parents can access the question and its answers through a music app-style interface. This interface allows parents to listen to the question and answers, adding an auditory component to the experience. All answers are conveniently listed on the question itself, allowing for easy navigation and review. This innovative approach helps make the process of finding answers and solutions to parenting challenges seamless and enjoyable.
All Question Page
From the home page, parents can quickly access their asked questions, making it simple to revisit important information. Additionally, the app allows parents to save their favorite answers, which are displayed at the top of the page for quick and convenient access. When favorites are not added, the app automatically categorizes answers as recent, providing an organized and efficient way to review and keep track of important information
Events Page
This feature provides another way for parents to engage with professional help for their parenting needs. The events page offers a boost to parents, giving them access to a wider range of support and resources. This new feature further enhances the app's ability to provide a comprehensive solution for parents
Home Page
The app's home page serves as a central hub for parents seeking advice and support. It features the latest updates and events from the app, providing a one-stop destination for all the information parents need to stay informed and engaged. The home page also provides easy access to all the questions asked by parents, giving them a convenient and organized way to revisit important information.
End Thoughts -
Problem addressed: The app provides a solution for parents who are seeking advice and support for their parenting journey.
Key features: The app offers Q&A with parenting guides through voice notes and text, personalized one-on-one sessions with experts, and seminars on various parenting topics.
User-friendly interface: The app has a user-friendly interface, making it easy for parents to access the resources and support they need.
Future Potential: This app has the potential to become a leading resource for parents seeking advice and support, and to continue to make a positive impact on the lives of families.
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