OVERVIEW

BACKGROUND

Huckleberry is a mobile app for baby health, designed to aid parents in monitoring their baby's sleep with support from pediatric sleep consultants. It also allows parents to keep track of diapers, feeding, medicine, growth, and activity. Huckleberry is a tremendous help to many parents - I used it with my first child and plan to use the app again with the upcoming arrival of my baby girl.

PROBLEM AND HYPOTHESIS

I pondered ways to further enhance the app's usefulness. I had a hypothesis that a wearable interface would be a useful addition to the Huckleberry app since busy parents don't always have their phones within reach while caring for their babies.

I also thought the ability to add a caregiver would be beneficial. This functionality would enable parents to maintain visibility into their baby's activities even while they are at work or when the baby is under the care of someone else. By allowing caregivers to log the baby's activities on the same account, parents can stay connected and keep track of their baby's well-being regardless of their physical presence.

Research

METHODOLOGY

To initiate my research, I conducted a competitive analysis with other baby tracking apps. There are quite a few on the market, so I selected four of the most popular apps to perform a thorough comparison of their features and functionalities, aiming to identify their strengths and weaknesses.

I also scanned the customer reviews on the App Store for the Huckleberry app. During this process, I came across a considerable number of users expressing their desire for an Apple Watch interface. These reviews highlighted the fact that busy moms often encounter situations where their phones are not readily available, thus confirming and validating my hypothesis regarding the significance of incorporating an Apple Watch app to enhance the app's accessibility and convenience for users.

To gather insights into parent expectations and user behaviors related to baby tracking apps, I posted a survey in a few local community groups on Facebook.

I compiled my survey responses and findings from follow-up user interviews with 6 participants into an affinity map.

Here's what I discovered –

Finding #1

A common frustration was forgetting to record baby activity because users didn't always have their phones on them.

Finding #2

Many users expressed the desire for an Apple Watch interface for ease of tracking.

Finding #3

The main things that users track are baby's sleep, feedings, and diapers.

Finding #4

Many users share the responsibility of tracking their baby's activity with other caregivers, such as their spouses or nannies. The "add a caregiver" feature would enhance ability to coordinate and stay informed about their child's routine.

Design

TASK FLOWS

I developed task flows for both watch and mobile devices. I refined the "Logging sleep" task flow from the existing Huckleberry mobile app to fit on Apple Watch, simplifying the flow to suit the device's constrained screen size.

LO-FI SKETCHES

I began by sketching my designs with pencil on paper for the add a caregiver feature to the mobile app, and a simple interface for the Apple Watch.

Based on the findings from my research, I decided to include just three logging choices within the simplified Apple Watch interface: sleep, feeding, and diapers. These selections represent the key activities that emerged as the most commonly tracked by users.

Regarding the "adding a caregiver" feature to the mobile interface, I deliberated between two methods of carrying this out: having users input a caregiver code or sending an invitation via email. I chose to go with the caregiver code method for the initial testing phase.

THE DESIGN SYSTEM

Huckleberry has a light, dark, or system color theme. I chose to focus on the night mode color theme since many loggings are done at night, when baby is nursing or sleeping.

Prototype

HI-FI APPLE WATCH MOCKS

I omitted the "Sleep Details" on the Apple Watch interface for the sake of simplicity - if the user wants to enter in details for that sleep session they can go in later and enter the details on their phone.

HI-FI MOBILE MOCKS

Using familiar screens from the Huckleberry app

I modified the existing Huckleberry home page and settings screen with the "Add Caregiver" function.

I created new screens for the main account holder to input caregiver information, ask the caregiver to download the Huckleberry app, and share the Caregiver Code found in the Settings page.

The flow below is from the Caregiver's perspective. I added an onboarding screen and a page that is specifically to join an existing family. However, it was kind of difficult to show the back and forth that would need to happen between the two flows of the main account holder and caregiver.

Test

I conducted my usability test with 6 participants to optimize my design. Most of these tests were done through prototype on a mobile device or desktop on Figma.

Ideally, I would have wanted to test the Apple Watch prototype on an actual watch. I found a Figma plugin called Watch Mirror, but unfortunately, it was unreliable and did not work. I made do with the testing the watch prototype on desktop.

User Tasks

The participants were asked to:

1. Log a sleep session on the Huckleberry Apple Watch interface
2. Add a caregiver on the Huckleberry mobile interface
3. Accept the caregiver invitation on the Huckleberry mobile interface

USABILITY TEST RESULTS

All participants were able to complete the Apple Watch task flow with ease. They all said it was intuitive and straightforward.

Most users actually would prefer an email invitation over the caregiver code.

ITERATIONS

Wearable Interface

Although the Apple Watch prototype required no iterations, I decided to expand the interface by adding some extra screens for logging a diaper change to showcase the design comprehensively.

Mobile Interface

The following are the revisions I implemented in the mobile prototype, primarily involving iterations related to changing the approach for adding caregivers through an email invitation.

Final Product

Here is the final high-fidelity prototype of my design after the revisions were made.

Try the HUCKLEBERRY APPLE WATCH prototype ➞

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