Healthcare

Addressing the mental health of pregnant women

This healthcare app is designed for pregnant women and new moms dealing with depression. It offers activities to promote positive thinking and relaxation, as well as a feature to manage schedules and medication intake. Overall, it's an essential tool for supporting mental and emotional well-being during this challenging time.

My role: UX Researcher and Designer

Time frame: 2 weeks (Feb 12- 26/2023)

Tools: Figma, FigJam, Paper and pencil, Slack, Zoom meeting

Problem space

Young pregnant women are affected or struggling because of mental health and not getting attention or treatment as needed

Major Problems:

High blood pressure

Infections

Depression and anxiety

pregnancy loss preterm labor

Key research insight

Major depressive episodes during pregnancy and the year after birth, known as the perinatal period, are common, affecting up to 1 in 5 U.S. women. More than half of these women go undiagnosed and 85% are untreated, which can lead to complications during pregnancy and childbirth. In the most severe cases, perinatal depression can increase the risk for a mother to end her own life or that of her child.

In 2018, nearly one in 10 women who delivered a baby was diagnosed with postpartum depression (PPD).

Assumptions

I assume pregnant women would like to connect with other women on the same journey other than their partners.

I assume not getting payment plans and affordable healthcare is holding them back from contacting health support.

I assume pregnant women couldn't schedule appointments easily at the right time.

i assume that women want to connect with other people on the internet.

I assume pregnant women don’t know how they should spend their time.

i assume women who are pregnant dont know how to spend their time.

Interview

To validate my assumptions and ensure their accuracy, I implemented a research plan that included conducting interviews with 4 potential users. As a starting point for these interviews, I developed a hypothesis based on my initial assumptions.

After interviewing 4 people I analyzed and synthesized the data gathered. This includes identifying common themes, patterns, and insights that emerge from the interviews and organizing and categorizing the data meaningfully.

Key theme 1

Phone
in person

Need for support and guidance

As most of my interviewees, they need help from experienced individuals, such as friends who have gone through the pregnancy journey, as well as healthcare providers.

Methadology

20 min

Pregnant or new mom

Key theme 2

Desire for more communication

Most of the interviewee said that communicating with healthcare providers and scheduling appointments is much needed.

Key theme 3

Engage in self-care activities

Such exercise and relaxing activities like taking a shower or practicing yoga, as well as reaching out to friends for support, helps me to understand that engaging in self-care activities is one thing.

Persona

How might we

Following an in-depth analysis of the key themes and challenges I identified the critical pain points and crafted the following How Might We statement as a guiding principle to design an effective solution.

"How might we provide support to pregnant women experiencing depression?"

Task selection

After creating a persona I wrote 20+ user stories to have an idea of what I should be focusing more on when designing the app. From all these user stories I picked my core epic related to my persona. Decided to focus more on budgeting for their trip.

Core epic

As a Young pregnant woman, I want to work out a routine that I follow every day so I can feel better both physically and mentally

Task flow

To better understand the user journey, I created a task flow that outlined each step a user would take to complete a specific task.

sketches

To ensure that my wireframes would effectively address the problem space, I first created an inspiration board to gather ideas and insights from other successful designs and sketch some ideas I thought could help me solve the problem. This included workout apps, healthcare apps…

Why i chose the sketches

The chosen sketch presents a login screen that is designed to create a calm and engaging user experience. The interface has been designed to ensure that users are able to easily navigate and understand the login process, which is an important element in creating a positive user experience.

Login screen sketches

Chosen sketch

Lo-Fi

Work out list screen

Chosen sketch

Lo-Fi

Home screen sketches

Chosen sketch

Lo-Fi

Recommended screen

I created this screen based on the sketches I have done for the previous sketches.

Lo-Fi

Chosen sketch

Wire frames

User testing

To ensure the user-friendliness of my design, I conducted two rounds of usability testing with a diverse group of five participants, selected based on their alignment with the targeted user persona and the task flow defined in the project scope.

28 years old

Lenna

Clifton, NJ

26 years old

James

Washington, DC

Daniel

24 years old

Silver Spring, MD

Kyle

30 years old

Denver, Colorado

Sara

26 years old

Denver, Colorado

V1-V2

V1

Following the user testing, I received a lot of feedback and used it to make several changes. The goal was to create a more user-friendly and clear product that could effectively solve the problem at hand.

Home screen

V2

It shows that it is clickable and there are more on the schedule.
The title drags attention. so that users check their schedules before proceeding to anything.