iOS App
This is a redesign of the app my child's daycare has us parents use to connect with our children's teachers. I spent 2 weeks on this design challenge solving UX issues, improving the UI by using standard mobile styles & prototyping solutions.
Parents / Guardians of children attending daycare.
Improve the design of the application to use standard design patterns, remove high interaction costs, bring in brand personality into the interface, integrate into the busy, hectic lives of parents
Based on conversations with other parents who have children in daycare, and based on my own experiences, mornings are very busy. This journey reflects what parents go through each morning prior to dropping off their children at daycare.
Before diving into design comps, I put together a mood board that represented the style I had in mind. I did this so I could get a feel of what can work well, and also to build up inspiration. My overall vision for the app is to have a colorful and playful style, being that this is an app for daycare.
Some examples of wireframes and my exploration of the home screen trying to get a design layout that met the goals I set for the redesign.
The app welcomes the parent, creating a personable experience. The UI primarily focuses on the child and the inputting of the drop-off notes. Marking absent is no longer hidden in the app. This screen also lists out most recent calendars for parents to easily refer back to. Reminders of upcoming school events are ever-present as well in the interface.
The feature now presents the users with a native experience similar to the iOS photos app. I chose this UX so the user has a familiar experience when interacting with their children's photos while in the daycare app. Photos are also no longer mixed together with announcements and daily reports, allowing parents to have a clean experience when viewing photos. This is crucial for swiping through photos. The current app has a pain point that when swiping through photos, because of the mixed content, daily reports would slide into view.
Parents can now respond to and have conversations with their children's teachers and the executive team. Currently, to have any conversation, parents need to call the school or send an email.
Using Siri, Alexa or Google Home assistants, parents can enter drop-off notes without needing to pull out their phone to manually enter info. This feature allows parents to log details in real-time as they can speak to their assistant while in the process of changing a diaper, making this task much more convenient. Real-time inputting of drop-off notes also alleviates parents from needing to recall all of their child's info for that morning since they no longer need to manually enter the info at a later time in the morning.
I validated the current prototype with friends who use a daycare app each morning. The voice activated feature concept was well received. With more time, I would work with the school to set up usability tests with additional parents to gather more data. To complete a holistic experience, I would also review the app from which the staff uses, that accepts this info from the parents, and which allows staff to post updates to parents throughout the day. After reviewing, I would propose solutions that improve the experience for the staff.
