Remindful

During this time of shelter-in-place, parents of young children have to take on new roles such as being a teacher at home. The goal of this project is to explore ways to support parents during this challenging time.

Role

Human-centered design, visual design, branding

Team

Vienna Li, Paloma Santos

Time

6+ weeks, 2020

User Research

In order to practice human-centered design, we set out to seek real anecdotes – we wanted to build a product from real user problems rather than come up with a concept from a preconceived idea. First, we conducted a few interviews with parents of school-aged children. We used the findings to structure our persona, based on a real parent.

User Research

Meet Our Person, Julie

Julie is a mother of two school-aged boys. During the pandemic, she has to take care of her sons at home while simultaneously maintain her 9-5 finance job, do household chores, and check in on her relatives.

As a parent, she strives to stay organized, and is especially attentive to her personal goals such as taking breaks, practicing mindfulness, and noting her daily intentions and affirmations. She wasn’t shy to candidly share how she had to learn how to stay calm through chaos when her day does not go as planned.

Affinity Map

Mapping Our Findings

We then mapped out our ideas, takeaways, inferences, and potential solutions. This exercise helped us visualize our thoughts and develop our solutions. After several rounds of discussion (& starting over), we had our concept!

Synthesis

Findings & Highlights

Here were some of my top takeaways to incorporate into the final design:

Scheduling

Keep herself and her children on a structured schedule

Reminders

Checkins and reminders of tasks like emotional health and hand washing

Time Budgeting

Budget time for her to have her alone time during quarantine

Productivity

Obsessed with tracking her progress and analytics

Customized to Each Person

Allowing flexibility as each child and parent are unique

Goal

Design an app that improve the division of responsibility between two parents.

Reminders

Displays to-do list and completed list of daily or weekly tasks.

Each user can add tasks and set who is the task-doer.

After a task is completed the user marks down the amount of time the task took.

Analytics

Hours are collected for each user and displayed to show weekly hours and percentages.

Contains clear graphs visually showing the distribution of work between two parents.

Design

Sketches

I wanted to consider all design aspects of the app along with the user flow of:

01 Creating a task

02 Checking off a task

Iterations

Reminders Screens

I incorporated custom-colored task cards that match each partner’s profile colors for clarity when checking off tasks. Greyed-out cards indicate that a task is finished – I explored different representations of completion here. I added a large call-to-action button in the navigation bar as creating a task is the main function of the app. I then ideated on the user experience to create a new task. Lastly, a date selector would allow users to jump to different days and allow for future planning!

Iterations

Analytics Screens

After doing research into data visualization, I opted to include both percentage and hourly units in the weekly graphs, allowing users to understand correlations and long-term trends. Visualizing concrete data may point out any inequalities at home.

Goal

Usability testing at the source

I demoed the prototype to Julie and asked her to give her thoughts. Fortunately, she gave positive feedback and inspired the next wave of feature iterations!

Likes

Visual Design, colors

Analytics keep partners accountable and productive

Helps user be mindful about time

Wants

Sync calendar apps

Set Task for Future Date

Dark Mode

Updates From User Testing

Set a date when creating a task

Allows for future planning, ie “take Luke to the dentist on July 25th.”

Updates From User Testing

Profile Settings

Edit information, custom colors, syncing with google calendar.

Updates From User Testing

Daily Check In Notifications

Improves the app’s user engagement and retention.

Updates From User Testing

Dark Mode

Users can easily plan out the next day’s tasks during the night before without straining their eyes.

Badge Design

Colors & Typography

The branding of Remindful is calm and neutral but with pops of color that the user can customize and therefore feel in control of their experience. I chose Gotham, as it’s simple, easygoing, and readable. Also, I made sure all font sizes were reasonably accessible.

Updates From User Testing

Grid

I loosely referenced a 6-column grid, which is a versatile (& my personal favorite) mobile grid as you can easily align one item, two items, or three items in each row. I also made sure all commonly tapped elements were within a reasonable mobile thumb zone range.