OUTLINE
Parent Pal is an app that aims to address the mental load of being a parent.
Mental load refers to the cognitive and emotional burden that parents experience in managing various aspects of family life. It consists of the mental tasks and responsibilities involved in parenting, such as planning, organizing, and decision-making related to childcare, schedules, and the overall well-being of the family.
DISCOVERY
Guiding questions
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What are the everyday complexities of running a family?
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What factors have the greatest impact on the mental load experienced by parents?
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Which solutions and tools are currently used to ease the load?
Methods
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Survey: 55 parents of children between ages of 3-12
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Interviews: 5 parents of 2+ children
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Competitive audits: 5 apps related to the domain
Results and insights
Survey
75%
One parent is usually in charge of arranging the daily activities and tasks of the household
78%
Constantly experience heavy mental load, feeling stressed and exhausted almost all the time
63%
Use more than one method to arrange the schedule and tasks
65%
Use a calendar app, mostly Google Calendar
Interviews highlights
"Feeling invisible"
No one really understands what it takes to plan and coordinate the day-to-day activities of the household.
"Need more help"
Wish they could share the load with their partner or other caregivers
"Forgetting tasks"
Sometimes tasks are forgotten no matter how hard they try to manage everything.
Competitive Research
Common apps:
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Sharing a calendar/event/task
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Events and task reminder
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Not readymade for the complex use cases of running a family - requires a high level of customization
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Advanced features are not intuitive for the common parent
Dedicated apps:
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Linking calendar events and tasks
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Managing help circles (friends, family, other parents)
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Lengthy repetitive setup process for every event
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Lack of proactive conflict management when schedules overlap
PERSONAS
After talking to several people during the interview, I developed Ella, my main persona, and Dan - her partner:
GOAL STATEMENT
The Parent Pal app is designed to support parents with young children.
It will offer planning tools, scheduling conflict management, and a network of fellow parents/caregivers for support. With customizable schedules, a template library, and community features, Parent Pal will help parents ease their mental load.
CHALLENGES
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Parents are often very busy, and lack the mental capacity to manually set up every activity or task in an app.
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Coordinating conflicting schedules among multiple children can be tricky, and relying solely on a calendar app may not be enough.
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The partner may struggle to understand how to support the primary caregiver effectively.
PLANNING THE SOLUTION
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Through my research, I found that most activities and tasks involve multiple subtasks that require attention prior to the event.
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Taking into account various levels of flexibility required for different activities and tasks.
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Designing the solution to be customizable, and fit to the unique needs of different families.
TASK FLOW
This is the flow for adding a new activity in the family's schedule:
LOW FIDELITY
I started to create wireframes to the home screen and later to the events and calendar screens using "6up" method:
USABILITY TESTING
5 users - testing and refining leading concepts.
Main takeaways:
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Screen clarity: Customization options upfront are overwhelming - templates must do most of the work
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Lightweight design: Crowded screens create confusion and stress when the user needs to take quick action - spread out the elements to reduce the cognitive load
