New Moms are Isolated 

Imagine this - you just gave birth, and it’s your spouse’s first week back at work. You have no family nearby, your friends are at work, and you feel alone. You’re not sure how to care for a baby and are in a constant cycle of feeding, changing diapers, and helping a newborn nap. 

What is MamaCircle?

As the UX team of one, I developed MamaCircle to combat isolation and the lack of community that many new moms who are expecting or who have become a parent in the past 12 months experience. MamaCircle helps moms connect to one another, and give and get advice about being a new mom.

EMPATHIZE - What Do Exhausted, Isolated, Overwhelmed Moms Need?

According to the article, Ten Challenges New Parents Face, matrescence, the experience of becoming a new mom, is associated with one of the largest reorganizations of the brain, behavior, endocrine system, identities, and relationships.  In the New York Times article In the Birth of a Mother, Dr. Alexander Sachs wrote, “When women find themselves feeling lost somewhere between who they were before motherhood and who they think they should be now, many worry that something is terribly wrong, when in fact this discomfort is absolutely common.”

What would make new moms’ lives easier? 

Thirty moms with babies born 0-12 months ago completed my screener survey. I’m grateful to these busy moms for sharing these thoughts:

• 78% struggled to make time for themselves

• 72% found it hard to make time to exercise 

• Only 8% figured out how to make more time for themselves

Three Key Insights

Insight 1: New Moms Want Connection

“What I craved was hearing other moms remind me that this doesn't last that long and later down the road it will be more rewarding with your kid. I wish I had more of that." J.F.

Insight 2: Exercise is a way to ground new moms

“I noticed now with having a baby, it [exercise] makes me feel more energetic. It makes me a better mom." M.V.

Insight 3: New moms feel guilty during self-care

“How do you pull yourself away to feel like your baby is fully taken care of so you don’t feel like you always have to be caring for your baby?" J.F.

Based on this input, how might we help new moms...

1. be physically active & connect with other moms, friends, & their partners?

2. feel like they’re enough?

3. feel like they’re a part of a community when their relatives live far away?

4. make time to work out?

5. work out with other moms (in-person) and create a place where babies are cared for in a safe, welcoming, and entertaining space?

IDEATE - I brainstormed & prioritized potential solutions using a feasibility impact matrix.

Note: the numbers after each idea below correspond to the original how might we statement (s). 

PROTOTYPE - From User Stories to High-Fidelity Prototypes

To determine the MVP that I wanted to build, I developed user stories. I then created user flows, conducted guerilla usability testing on wireframes, produced a high-fidelity prototype, and conducted two rounds of usability testing.

Guerilla Usability Testing Led to Design Improvements

I sketched the main user flows, and uploaded them to the app, Pop Marvel, so that I could conduct guerilla usability testing. I asked 5 users about their impression of the home page, and asked them to complete three simple tasks: a) your newborn won’t stop crying, your spouse is out of town, and you need immediate help, b) meet another mom through the app, and c) ask other moms for help with a breastfeeding problem that you have. 

Findings

Issue #1: Who is this app for? 

Issue #2: How can I easily check messages from other moms who want to meet me?

Issue #3: If mombot can’t help me, who is this MamaCircle expert? Is it a live person?

As a result of the issues that users identified…

I updated some text in the original home page from “Get the Support You Need and Deserve” to “Connect with New and Expectant Moms Near You” to clarify who the app is for. I also added an inbox icon so moms could easily check messages from other moms. I changed the icon, “mombot” to “chat now”. See images below for the sketch that I uploaded to the app, Pop Marvel, and then the wireframe that I created online.

Usability Testing with High-Fidelity Prototype

Round 1 Usability Testing Concerns & Design Improvements

Issue #1: What is the purpose of the app? Where should I start? (Original home screen below).

Resolution #1: To address this concern, I designed three splash screens (see below) that describe how users can benefit from the app’s three main offerings. I also changed the name of the icon “momconnect” to “nearby moms ,” and changed the inbox icon to an icon that is a bell to show alerts when moms contact you or when someone has commented or reacted to a post you’ve contributed to or written. Lastly, I changed the headings on the homepage such as “What Moms Are Talking About” to “Trending Topics” and included a tagline underneath MamaCircle about the app’s intended target audience.

Issue #2: What is the chat for? Who will I chat with? 

In the images above, you’ll see that I added splash screens that describe the conversational bot and where information comes from, changed the home screen from “Chat and/or Get Advice” to “Get Advice Immediately from a Conversational Bot”, added a robot icon whenever a mom chats with the bot, and changed the icon on the bottom navigation bar from “chat” to “conversational bot”.

I also updated the original Chat and/or Get Advice page (noted below to the left). The title is now “Get Advice Immediately” and it includes a robot icon.

Issue #3: I can’t filter moms by interest and by proximity at the same time.

Resolution #3: I updated the original Mom Connect home screen (noted below on the left) so that moms could filter by interests, location, and similar aged kids (see the middle screen and the screen on the right below for the updated Mom Connect home screen and filtering options).

Round 2 Usability Testing Concerns & Design Recommendations

Issue #1: Moms don’t know where to start once they arrive at the home screen.

Recommendation #1: Re-design the home screen from a mom’s perspective. Share problems moms might have & how moms could access information multiple ways from the app depending on the urgency of the question/concern, whether they wanted information from other moms, or from vetted information, etc.

Issue #2: Moms want less interaction with the bot to get faster advice. 

Recommendation #2: Share flowchart that shows problems moms are facing & potential solutions early in conversation with the bot. If the bot isn’t helping a mom, offer her an opportunity to schedule an appointment with a MamaCircle expert, check the forum to see if a mom’s question has been asked and answered, and also get links to vetted articles.

Issue #3: Splash screens aren’t clarifying how to use bot and what the app can do. 

Recommendation #3: In each splash screen, clarify what app can do and be as concise as possible. In the beginning of the conversation with the bot, tell users that they’re talking to a conversational bot who is not a real person, but who has interacted with many moms previously and is continuously learning. Mention that moms can schedule an appointment to speak with a live expert during regular business hours at the start of the interaction if they prefer, they can begin chatting with the bot, or they can first check to see if their question has already been asked and answered in the community forum. 

Reflections

Give moms different ways to get advice- directly from chatbot or indirectly by embedding chatbot into the community forum.

From guerilla usability testing to the two rounds of usability testing, many moms expressed hesitation to interact with a chatbot. This is why I plan to ensure that moms have options to get their questions answered or concerns addressed. In the future if a question a mom asks has few responses, or if a mom doesn’t find the answer she’s looking for within the community forum, she’ll be able to interact with a bot embedded within the forum.

Explore forming moms’ groups by location and/or activity.

Throughout usability testing, numerous moms mentioned that they didn’t feel great, mentally or physically, and that they would enjoy meeting moms in a group setting. This felt like it would be less pressure than arranging a one-on-one meeting with another mom. I would explore ways to form groups for moms who want to meet up whether by neighborhood or by activity. 

Initially, hire people to answer questions for chatbot so the chatbot can learn from real conversations.

Lastly, when the app launches, I plan to hire experts to respond to moms who visit the chatbot. This will inform the algorithm that the chatbot will use to respond to common questions and concerns.