PARENTSPACE.

END-TO-END APPLICATION.

UX RESEARCH DEBRIEF.

RESEARCH GOAL

Find out if and in what possible ways a mobile application can help stay-at-home parents cope with social isolation and other problems related to the changes in their lifestyle.

PHASE 1 – SECONDARY RESEARCH

COMPETITIVE RESEARCH

Key takeaways:

·         All three competitor apps were designed exclusively for female users

·         We can benefit from designing a more gender inclusive app

·         Features to consider for our to-be-designed app:

-         a more private way for users to get in touch with each other locally;

-         simple, intuitive approach to browsing user profiles;

-         grouping by interests;

-         incognito mode;

-         a more effective way of protecting users from bullying and harassment.

PROVISIONAL PERSONAS

Number of provisional personas – 4

Personas’ goals:

-         Make new friends locally;

-         Make time for themselves;

-         Make time for their children;

-         Make time for their remote jobs;

-         Spend more time with other people;

-         Spend more time outside;

-         Take a break from their daily routine.

Personas’ pains:

-         Moving to new places often;

-         Stressful environment at home;

-         Children needing attention;

-         Remote job deadlines;

-         Spending a lot of time inside;

-         Being stuck alone in an unfulfilling routine;

-         Not wanting a stranger to babysit their child.

PHASE 2 – PRIMARY RESEARCH

USER INTERVIEW

Demographics:

·         Number of participants – 5.

·         Age range – 27-38.

·         Gender – female.

·         Number of children per participant – 1-3.

·         Participants’ children’s age range – 4.5 months to 11 years.

·         Experience being a stay-at-home parent range – 4.5 months to 8 years.

·         Have a partner – 5 participants.

·         Living together with their partner – 5 participants.

·         Introverts – 2; Extraverts – 2; In between – 1.

Key findings:

·         Time spent alone with children on daily basis: 4 to 8+ hours.

·         Time spent alone with children at home: up to 8 hours.

·         Time spent alone with children out of home: around 2 hours on average.

·         Me-time on daily basis:

-         parents of children under 2 – 3-4 hours a week;

-         parents of children 2 and up – 1-4 hours a day.

·         Participants’ social life after shifting to stay-at-home parenting:

-         changed to worse (less social life and communicating with friends) – 4;

-         remained the same – 0;

-         got better (more socializing and communicating with friends) – 1.

·         Participants having meltdowns related to their new lifestyle: 4 out of 5.

·         Participants’ readiness to leave their children with a babysitter:

-         Yes – 0;

-         No – 3;

-         Depends – 2 (only the oldest child - 1; only with someone the parent knows well – 1).

·         Participants’ willing to spend time with other parents and their children: 4 out of 5.

·         Participants taking part in playdates: 4 out of 5.

·         Research related things participants mentioned as missing in their lives:

-         Time with friends;

-         Me-time;

-         Child-free weekends;

-         Freedom to do what you want and have your own plans.

·         Participants’ expectations from the to-be-designed app:

-         a matching system that would help parents with similar interests who have children of similar age meet and do stuff together;

-         a section for creating a schedule for your child;

-         something where parents can interact with each other;

-         nutritional ideas, healthy meals, and snacks from scratch;

-         cool science experiments that you could do with your kids;

-         recipes section would be good (food for children and also for moms who want to lose weight or are breast-feeding);

-         psychological help (how to cope with your emotions);

-         help network families/parents with similar interests and ages to establish play groups, childcare tree, etc.

CONCLUSION

The data above proves that after shifting to being a stay-at-home parent a person experiences social isolation and the need to be more in touch with the others as well as make time for themselves and their own plans.

In particular, user interviews showed that 4 out of 5 stay-at-home parents experienced meltdowns related to their new lifestyle and had the need to spend time around other people.

Depending on the age of their children, user interview participants demonstrated different level of need in social life vs the need of me-time.

Stay-at-home parents with children under 2 proved to have significantly less free time and social life than the parents of children above 2.

Based on the insights and other data gathered during this research, we can create an app that can help the stay-at-home parents connect and fulfill their social needs (for both meeting people in person or just communicating online) as well as their possible need in other resources like sharing things with others (photos, posts, recipes, self-care ideas, etc.), advice from other parents, psychological support, etc.