Timeline
Dec 2020- 3 weeks
Team
Andres Sandrea
Miro, Adobe XD
Tools
Role & Responsibilities
UX Design- Iterative Wireframing, low & high fidelity prototypes
User Research- Qualitative Research, Competitive Analysis, User Surveys, Empathy Mapping, Persona Mapping
PregoPlate -Pregnancy Food Tracking App
UX Design Hackathon Challenge
The challenge for this hackathon, sponsored by UXResult and Benton Tech Solutions was, to design a quick and efficient approach to food logging for pregnant mothers who have gestational diabetes.
Learnings
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During this hackathon, I realized the power of divergent and convergent creative thinking in a limited time frame, especially when things don't go your way. My work pressure multiplied when two of my teammates decided to take another challenge at the last minute. Being the only experienced UX Designer in the team of two was definitely overwhelming. But I had a wonderful experience and felt more confident in my skills at the end of this challenge.
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I really enjoyed the whole process, from the research phase to designing the final prototype with my teammate. I realized that good research takes all the guesswork out and saves a lot of time during designing. My idea from the beginning was to make an app that looks good and performs even better for the user, and I think I did a pretty good job.
Problem
Gestational Diabetes: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), defined as any degree of glucose intolerance with onset during pregnancy, affects up to 270,000 pregnancies in the United States each year. Women with GDM are having trouble with logging their meals every day due to various reasons.
How might we motivate pregnant women to track their daily food intake through our digital solution?
Solution
Meet PregoPlate, a complete care app for pregnant women. It helps you to log your daily meals in a simple, quick, and easy way. This solution is designed based on the idea that holistic care is essential during pregnancy to keep you and your baby healthy.
Research
Keeping the time constraint in mind for this hackathon, we took the approach of dividing the whole process into two phases- UX Research and Design. I tried to follow the user-centered design process for this challenge and took users’ needs into account at every stage.
In the first phase, I focused on the research part, where I tried to understand our users and gain insights into their world to ensure that we serve our users’ best interests. Though we already knew about our target audience and the need for this solution, I still wanted to know more about them and how does the problem (gestational diabetes) affect them.
After browsing and reading different online portals such as – Reddit and Quora, I collected the qualitative data to analyze any similar patterns in the reported experience by women who have gestational diabetes. The reason behind choosing the qualitative data method was to gain some key insights about my users and comprehend the why behind the problem I was analyzing.
I also conducted a competitive analysis with popular competitors like Glucose- buddy diabetes tracker, Noom, and mySugar- diabetes tracker to analyze the problem space, what their audience likes and dislikes about them, and where the opportunity lies for my solution.
Challenges
During my research, I discovered that one of the treatments for gestational diabetes includes regularly monitoring blood sugar levels. And keeping these levels in a healthy range depends a lot on users’ lifestyles – what they eat and how active they are on a daily basis.
I kept adding bits of my research insights to my HMV question. Why? Because research insights always strengthen the design process and help us brainstorm design ideas for the real problem.
How might we motivate pregnant women to track their daily food intake, blood sugar levels, and physical activity through our digital solution?
Research Insights
Some of the recurring challenges pregnant women with diabetes struggle with are:
1. Hard to control cravings and log every meal
2. Worried about what people will think #momshaming
3. Confusion on their meal plan
4. Blood sugar tracking is stressful
Based on the insights and observations from the research methods, I developed a user story followed by a persona of my potential user and an empathy map to better empathize and target my design solution around my users.
User Story
I focused on articulating who, what and, why in a simple statement.
“As a pregnant woman with gestational diabetes, I want to log my meals and blood sugar level data all in one place so that I can do it regularly and quickly."
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Persona
Empathy Map
Design
Wireframes
In the Design phase, we tried to decide how our app flow would meet the needs of our target users (persona). We kept referring to our persona's goals and insights from our research. Our primary goal here was to understand what should come on each screen and how we can create a smooth flow for our users to go from point A to B.
After brainstorming some ideas, we moved on to wireframes where we focused on refining the product features and key functionality of the app.
At this phase of the project, I shared all my findings with my teammate, who volunteered to focus on the design part with me for this challenge.
Onboarding
Solution
After a few iterations, the final solution ended up focusing on a quick onboarding, holistic way to help pregnant women stay healthy and stress-free by providing necessary features like meal logging through clicking pictures or barcode scanning, easy access to interact with doctors, and a quick way to add vitals.
Main screen
Chat with doct.
Food logging
Meal selection
Food log & tracking
Gamification
Main screen
A quick and efficient way to log food intake for a pregnant mother with gestational diabetes.
Colorful cards provide visuals for easy identification of user goals.
Easy access to health care providers to get personal support.
High-fidelity prototype
Disclaimer:
For this case study purpose, I redesigned all the screens while keeping the same user flow that we presented in the hackathon.
Judges’ Feedback
"Exceptional presentation and solution! I love the easy connectivity and access to her doctor, as well as the gamification around populating meal data rath than making it a chore. Overall fantastic work and this team will surely be considered as a finalist."
"Love the pregnant avocado icon and the overview of the app has great IA. Liked how this app can provide a connection with healthcare providers."
Future Considerations
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To test this prototype with the real users to gain insights and scope of improvement.
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To create a community support forum, a safe place for women with GDM to share their experiences, support, and motivate each other.