Research

The bulk of background research was done by the client, in which they validated the problem statement through years of extensive research and focus groups of the target population. 
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Our team created a survey and distributed it to expecting mothers. One main takeaway from the survey was that pregnant people wished they had an anonymous way to ask questions and get non-medical feedback during the pregnancy journey.

Competitive Analysis

We collectively studied apps with functions including pregnancy tracking, menstrual tracking, and AI bot-specific apps. Main takeaways from competitive research: 

• A dashboard that shows current pregnancy progress and upcoming tasks is important.
• The chatbot should play a central role in the design of the app.

The app Duolingo was also a big inspiration because the app does a great job of encouraging daily progress using rings and daily streaks. It also has a fun character that talks to the user in an encouraging way. 

Personas

Personas were created to represent two types of women who would use the app. Clara uses the app for prenatal care, while Emma uses the app for postpartum pregnancy tips after her child is born. 

As a result of time constraints, we only focused on Clara for the design of the user flow.

User Flow

A few different user flows were created to focus on for screen designs. The main areas of focus were to complete a daily check in using the chatbot and to book an appointment with a telehealth doctor. 

Early Wireframes 

Wireframes were created for the important screens in the app and for the major user flows. 

Resources Page:

• User can either search at the top or sort by the top taps to find things they are looking for
  

Chatbot and Chatbot Check-in:

• During the daily check-ins and conversations with the chatbot, the user can choose emojis to describe how they’re feeling. This helps the user quickly make a decision and make the app more accessible to multiple languages.

Home Dashboard:

• The user can clearly see their progress on daily or weekly goals with the rings around the circle.
• The user also sees their daily tasks in the form of a checklist below the progress circle.

UI Design

The UI Inspiration and decisions are meant to evoke feelings of comfort without being overly cute or feminine. Some of the UI elements are:

• Hand drawn illustrations
• Pastel colors
• Nothing too cutesy but also not photo-real 

The name Obi was chosen as a play on an OB-GYN. Obi is also the name of the chatbot character. Obi is meant to be a companion to the user and provide advice in a non-judgemental way. The character was hand drawn by our team and is used throughout as the icon for the chatbot.

High Fidelity Prototype

Usability Testing

Task One: Complete a Daily Check In

Main Takeaways:

• Would like recommended words to choose along with the emojis
• The chatbot sounds too robotic and should feel more humanistic. 

Task Two: Navigate around the home screen

Main Takeaways:

• The percentages are confusing, it may be better to say something like 1 out of 4 tasks complete, instead of 25%. 
• A little confused about having two separate rings around the circle.

Task Three: Book an Appointment

Main Takeaways:

• The user is not identifying the primary action on the screen to start booking the appointment
• The user suggested that the chatbot live on the bottom bar instead of floating in the corner, it felt in the way.

User Testing Insights

• The user understood the app overall and felt it was intuitive. The most pertinent  suggestions were to move the chatbot into the bottom bar and to make sure the chatbot sounds friendly and not robotic.
  

Outcomes

• We were able to build functional prototypes of all requested features over the course of 4 weeks.
• The company received funding to put the product into production near the end of our design sprint.
• The general usability score was high, with some room for improvement.

Next Steps 

Since the AI chatbot is the cornerstone of the product, more testing should be conducted around the language of the chatbot, how the user would use the chatbot and more.

Learnings

This was my first time working with a team of fellow UX designers and it was helpful to learn how to divide up tasks, balance different opinions and stay organized while working remotely on a team. In order to keep things organized and collaborative, we scheduled times to work together on Figma, used collaborative google docs and divided up roles and responsibilities.