MonsterCare App Design

My Role: Product Designer, UX Researcher, Visual Designer

Duration: 3 months

Deliverables: Designing the app from zero

Team: 2 UI/UX Designers

About:

A school-aged child care app that offers a technology platform to connect parents and quality babysitters.

Category:

UI/UX Design

Core Idea:

“MonsterCare” is addressing parental burnout, a serious issue marked by extreme exhaustion, emotional detachment from children, and self-doubt among parents. "MonsterCare" seeks to alleviate these strains by offering professional childcare assistance as needed and creating a safe, entertaining, and professional environment for children, helping parents manage their dual roles more effectively.

PROBLEMS

Many experience parental burnout, marked by extreme exhaustion, emotional detachment, and self-doubt. Finding reliable childcare is another major issue, with frequent no-shows and lack of transparency about the sitter's activities with their children. Customers need a dependable solution that provides professional care, ensures timely arrival of sitters, and offers detailed feedback on their child's activities.

SOLUTIONS

Reliability Issues:
Real-time tracking and map navigation ensure sitters arrive on time
and prevent no-shows.

Monitoring and Transparency:
Parents can monitor the sitter's activities with their children, enhancing trust and peace of mind.

Badges on sitter's profile:
the app provides badges to each sitter to showcase their accomplishments, helping parents make informed choices and ensuring they hire trustworthy individuals.

RESEARCH

Mental Health:

Parents who got supports to take the caring responsibility had lower odds of experiencing adverse mental health symptoms. According to a CDC report, 27% of parents of children aged <18 years reported that their mental health had worsened during the pandemic.

Gender Inequality

For most families, the major caregivers are women and they provide more caring time than their male counterparts.

59%
41%

Large Market Demand:

1. The U.S. child care market size was valued at USD 33.5 billion in 2021 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.15 % from 2022 to 2030.
2. As per the Harvard Business Review, 57% of working families in the U.S. spent more than USD 10,000 on daycare. Families in the U.S. are willing to spend more on childcare services.
3. Single-parent families are rising in the U.S., as per the 2022 single-parent statistics U.S., around 11 million single-parent families were reported in 2022, of which 80% of single-parent families are mothers.

Working Parents:

Balance the work and life is a curial problem for many parents. Two of the three top reasons for parents to leave the workforce are about childcare.

Percent of parents who report leaving the workforce for the following reasons:

Unable to find childcare solutions that meet needs

Health and safety concerns

Desire to spend more time with children

SUMMERY

Lack of Child Care

13% of U.S. parents had to quit a job or reduce their working hours due to a lack of child care, according to a survey of 2,557 working parents conducted by Northeastern University.

Low Productivity

Parents who can work from home are struggling to produce the same amount of work while balancing child care.

Expensive

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, families are experiencing additional challenges in finding, maintaining, and affording childcare that meets their needs.

Unemployment

38% of working parents have yet to return to work, and 13% either unlikely or unsure whether they will return to work. The most common reason for those who are unlikely to return to work is childcare concerns.

1. What are the top reasons for parents to choose or not to choose childcare ?

2. What are the qualities they value the most in a babysitter?

SURVEY

We had 25 participants to complete our survey. Here is the results we got for them.

AFFINITY MAP

A brainstorm for the possible functions I could include in our design based on the outcome of the survey.

PERSONA

USER JOURNEY MAP

Persona: Jessica

Jessica feels overwhelmed on balancing her work and personal life. She barely has the energy to help with her kids’ homework because they feel the overloading with house chores she and her husband need to do after work. Jessica also hopes to have some date nights with her husband.

Expectations

1. She and her husband are able to have some date nights.
2. Her children are able to have someone help with their schoolwork.
3. Reliable, on-time childcare
4. Ability to find a caregiver in a short notice.

KEY INSIGHTS

Last-minute Booking

  1. They expect a dependable service that can quickly connect them with trustworthy sitters even at the last minute, ensuring their children are well cared for without added worry.

Reliability

  1. Frequent no-shows and unreliable sitters create significant stress.

Transparency

  1. Lack of information on sitters' activities with their children causes anxiety.
  2. Parents want to ensure their children are engaged in meaningful and appropriate activities.

Trust Issues

  1. Ensuring their children are in a safe, fun, and professional environment is crucial.

COMPETITORS

SITEMAP

USERFLOW

i conducted a user card sorting to figure out a user flow from one of the key features in the app.

WIREFRAME

USER TESTING

We invited 2 moms to do a moderated usability testing. Each test lasted 1 hour.

Goals:

  1. Simple and intuitive interface to manage bookings and activities.
  2. Test the process for booking sitters, especially for last-minute needs, to confirm it's quick and reliable.
  3. To test if they think the real-time tracking help them better navigate sitter's status.
  4. To test if they value detailed reports on their children's activities to stay informed and engaged.

ITERATION

Button Overlay

Based on the feedback we got from the user testing, buttons were blocking the information. For a better view, we put them on the bottom

Before

After

Icons

To make the app feel more playful, we switched small simple icons to larger illustrative ones. And the checklist layout design is more easier to view.

Before

After

Tasks Layout

The updated task list design carries on the same ideas from icons design on map page. And that also makes the app feel more consistent.

Before

After

OUTCOMES

Home Page

Schedule Page

Onboarding

Signup

Service Page

Browse Sitters

Chat Page

Receipt Page

DESIGN SYSTEM

CHARACTER SYSTEM

REFLECTION

It’s important to have interviews with moms, dads and sitters so we have better understandings of what they are struggling and what’s the key function for them.

  1. Sitters can also review the parent because the relationship of sitters and parents is a mutual selection.
  2. Parents are able to report the sitter if there is any things happening during the service.
  3. Adding more info about sitters for example health condition.
  4. Rewarding system is able to motivate sitters to perform better and decrease the chance of not showing up to an appointment.

Do not focus too much on the graphics of the app, thinking more about functionality and inclusive design.

  1. In the beginning we were thinking so much about how to make the app “pretty”, as we went further,  we discovered that users like a well-organized app where everything is easy to use.

Child care app also should getting kids involved.

  1. Our illustrative design was inspired by children’s book. We want to use monsters to indicate that kids should not more defined so early because they have so many potentials and it is time to explore them.
  2. The report card function is to document their work such as drawings, happy moments
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