KIDS GUARDIAN
Mobile First Design
Facilitating parental access to a comprehensive range of child health resources, guidance, and solutions.
Timeline: Summer 2022 Role: UX/UI Designer, Researcher - Solo Project for Designlab Bootcamp
Parents today face numerous challenges in taking care of their child's mental and physical health. These challenges include the increasing prevalence of mental health issues, the stigma surrounding mental health, limited access to mental health services, balancing academic pressures, managing the influence of digital and social media, combating sedentary lifestyles and obesity, addressing sleep deprivation, prioritizing parental self-care and support, and keeping up with evolving knowledge and information. Each child is unique, and it is crucial for parents to maintain open communication, seek professional guidance when needed, and create a supportive environment that prioritizes their child's overall well-being.
Overview
As a parent, it can be challenging to stay on top of your child's physical and mental well-being, especially in today's fast-paced lifestyle where demands on our time are greater than ever before.
The Challenge
Managing children's overall health can be a challenging task for parents in today's times due to various factors. Here are some facts and data on the challenges parents face in this regard:
Mental Health Issues: The prevalence of mental health issues among children and adolescents has been rising. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), approximately 9.4% of children aged 2 to 17 years in the United States have been diagnosed with ADHD, and 7.1% have experienced a major depressive episode.
Limited Access to Healthcare: Some families face challenges in accessing affordable and quality healthcare services, including preventive care and timely medical interventions for their children. This can impact their ability to manage and address health issues effectively.
Peer Pressure and Influences: Children may face various social pressures and influences from peers, media, and advertising, which can impact their health choices. These pressures may relate to body image, substance abuse, risky behaviors, or unhealthy dietary practices.
Information Overload: In today's digital era, parents are inundated with vast amounts of health-related information from various sources, making it challenging to filter out accurate and reliable guidance for their children's health needs.
The Solution & Design Process
User Research
User research was done with the goal to learn what parents experience when they access well-child check-up services, are all their queries answered, and feel supported through the entire process.
What does the Pediatric Healthcare system’s current offerings for parents? Let’s explore Bay Area, California
Provides comprehensive pediatric care including check-ups, sick visits, screenings, and behavioral health evaluations.
Offers inpatient and outpatient care, surgical services, and specialty programs for cancer, heart, and transplant care.
Provides preventive care, check-ups, vaccinations, and specialty care for chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes.
Offers well-child check-ups, sick visits, screenings, behavioral health evaluations, and specialized care for chronic conditions.
Areas where the Healthcare system struggles:
Coordination of care: The current healthcare system often fails to provide coordinated care for children with complex medical needs, leading to fragmented and inefficient care delivery, medical errors, and increased costs.
Health disparities: Health disparities persist among children, with racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups experiencing disparities in access to care, health outcomes, and health behaviors.
Mental health services: Many children with mental health disorders do not receive adequate care due to a lack of available services, stigma, and challenges in accessing care.
Preventive care: The healthcare system often prioritizes reactive care over preventive care, leading to missed opportunities for promoting healthy behaviors, preventing chronic diseases, and improving long-term health outcomes for children.
Introducing KIDS GUARDIAN
“Discover a comprehensive collection of top-tier health resources for your child, conveniently accessible in a single location.”
Get a wide collection of resources to help you with your child’s needs. Create a Unique Health Guide specifically focused to improve both physical and mental health.
CONCEPTUALIZING KIDS GUARDIAN
Storyboarding
The storyboard shows Parent 1 who observes his child on screen a significant amount of the day. Parent 1 also worries about children indulging in bad influences at school. Parent shares this worry with another Parent 2 who advises using a new app that provides all resources for mental /physical well-being in one place.
Parent 1 feels excited about this new app and thinks this might be really helpful for his child.
Storyboarding helped me envision users’ journeys and empathize with
situations parents might face.
Content Prioritization with Card Sorting
The card sorting & dendrogram analysis provided valuable insights and clarity to the information architecture of my app, allowing me to visualize and organize the complex relationships between different elements, ultimately enhancing the user experience and facilitating seamless navigation.
SiteMapping
By meticulously creating a comprehensive site map for my app, I was able to strategically outline the hierarchical structure and interconnectedness of its pages, empowering users to easily navigate through the app's content, locate specific features, and grasp the overall layout, resulting in a streamlined and intuitive user experience.
Prototyping
Through thoughtful user flow design for my app, I crafted a seamless and intuitive pathway that guides users effortlessly from one screen to another, ensuring a smooth and logical progression throughout their interactions. This meticulous attention to user flow enhances usability, reduces confusion, and ultimately delivers a highly engaging and efficient user experience.
With careful consideration and thoughtful planning, I created the task flow of my app, outlining a user's seamless journey through a series of steps to accomplish specific actions or achieve desired outcomes. By analyzing user needs, identifying potential pain points, and streamlining complex processes, I designed an intuitive task flow that enhances usability, reduces friction, and maximizes user efficiency within the app.
These sketches served as a visual blueprint, allowing me to refine and iterate on the app's design, ensuring a visually appealing and user-friendly interface for mobile users.
By translating my hand-drawn sketches into digital wireframes, I transformed the initial visual concepts of my mobile app into interactive and functional representations. With careful attention to detail and a focus on user experience, I crafted these wireframes to accurately depict the app's structure, navigation, and content layout, serving as a solid foundation for the subsequent stages of app development and design refinement.
With a keen eye for cross-device compatibility, I skillfully crafted a responsive design for my app that seamlessly adapts and scales from mobile screens to larger desktop displays. By employing flexible layout techniques, fluid grids, and media queries, I ensured an optimal user experience across various screen sizes, enabling users to access and interact with the app's content effortlessly, regardless of the device they are using.
To capture the desired visual direction and evoke the intended emotions, I curated a captivating mood board for my app, carefully selecting a harmonious blend of colors, typography styles, imagery, and textures that perfectly encapsulated the app's intended mood, personality, and overall aesthetic. This mood board served as a visual reference and creative guide, ensuring consistency and coherence throughout the app's design process.
Mood Board
Designing Logo
With a thoughtful approach and a deep understanding of my app's brand identity, I crafted a compelling logo that encapsulates the essence of my app, combining meaningful symbols, captivating typography, and harmonious colors to create a visually impactful and memorable representation that resonates with users.
UI Component Library
Through careful design and systematic organization, I created a comprehensive component library for my app, which serves as a centralized repository of reusable UI elements and design patterns. This component library enables me to maintain consistency, streamline development, and enhance efficiency by providing a robust foundation of pre-designed components that can be easily implemented across various screens, ensuring a cohesive and polished user interface throughout the app.
Analyzing & Prioritizing
Hi Fidelity Wireframes
Building upon the initial lo-fi wireframes, I iteratively refined and enhanced the design elements, interactions, and visual details to create high-fidelity wireframes for my app, resulting in a more polished and realistic representation of the final product. This process allowed me to fine-tune the user interface, incorporate branding elements, and provide stakeholders with a clearer visualization of the app's look and feel, facilitating effective communication and aligning expectations before proceeding with the development phase.
After finalizing the high-fidelity wireframes, I proceeded to create interactive prototypes that simulated the app's functionality and user experience. By utilizing prototyping tools, I was able to showcase the app's features, user flows, and interactions, providing stakeholders and potential users with a hands-on preview of the app's behavior and validating design choices. These prototypes served as valuable testing and feedback tools, enabling me to iterate and refine the app's functionality before moving forward with the development stage.
Analyzing Usability Test Results
After conducting the usability tests, I carefully analyzed the results by systematically reviewing user feedback, observations, and performance metrics. By organizing and synthesizing the data, I gained valuable insights into user pain points, patterns, and preferences, allowing me to identify strengths and weaknesses in the app's design and user experience. This analysis empowered me to make informed design decisions, prioritize enhancements, and iterate on the app's interface to optimize usability and overall user satisfaction.
By thoroughly analyzing and thoughtfully prioritizing the usability test feedback of my app, I carefully assessed the user insights, observations, and suggestions to identify key areas for improvement. This comprehensive analysis enabled me to effectively prioritize the feedback based on its impact, feasibility, and alignment with the app's objectives, ultimately guiding the iterative design process and ensuring that user needs and preferences were addressed in subsequent iterations.
Design Handoff and Future Steps for the App
Based on the insights gained from the usability test results, my future steps for improving the app will involve implementing necessary design iterations and refinements to address identified issues and enhance the user experience. Additionally, to plan for a smooth design handoff, I intend to establish clear communication channels with developers, provide detailed design documentation including style guides and specifications, conduct design reviews, and collaborate closely to ensure a seamless transition from design to development, resulting in a successful and cohesive implementation of the app.