maternal mental health is at an all time high

70% of maternal mortalities can be prevented.

A mobile app that offers support to postpartum mothers.

MOTHERWISE

MotherWise is a mobile application designed to offer postpartum support and foster a sense of community among new parents. The app enables users to schedule meetups, chat with other members, and set daily reminders for themselves.

Motherhood is the hardest thing out there. You give and you give with little in return. The lack of a village depletes you even more, the lack of support leaves you feeling isolated.

My role

5 week sprint
2 weeks research
3 weeks design 

Timeline

Lead Product Designer

Key Contributions

Project Management
Concept Idea
Prototyping
Competitive Research
User Research
Interaction Design
Animation Design

My Process

Verify

Empathize

Specify

Ideate

Bring to life

1

3

2

5

4

In order to understand the MVP we are building we had to dig into the problem being faced:

Research has shown that lack of social support is a significant factor contributing to Postpartum depression.

I conducted user interviews to develop new personas and inform the design process.

To gather information about our target audiences' values, motivations, and pain points, I created an interview script with 22 open-ended questions.

Over the course of four days, I remotely recruited and interviewed seven users. The findings from these interviews were referenced throughout the design process.

Project GOals

Help our users find and give support

Goal 3:

How can we establish a secure environment where users feel comfortable discussing their experience?

Goal 1:

Ensure we provide educational resources on PPD

Goal 2:

Getting to know our users

I created an online survey and distributed it across several social media channels. Within a short span of time, we received 18 responses. Using the data collected, we identified 5 recurring pain points, which guided us to the next phase of the research process.

Insights:

  • The experiences during PPD

  • The level of social support during PPD

  • Emotions related to PPD and lack of communication

  • Distrust of professionals

  • The apps used regularly during PPD.

Findings to features

USability testing

usability testing

I developed a high-fidelity prototype of the new flows using Figma and began recruiting subjects who met our criteria for usability testing. In the first round, we conducted four tests, and three additional tests after iterating on the issues we identified.

One issue we identified was with navigating connections

which was somewhat confusing. To address this, we reorganized the screen order and added more directional cues. 

Final thoughts

If I had been given more time, I would have enjoyed prototyping further and conducting additional user testing. While I was able to gain a sufficient understanding within the given timeframe, I would have liked to further immerse myself in creating an app with the user's needs at the forefront.