Bambino App

Description: Bambino is a native app for iOS only that occupies the Babysitter on Demand space. By the time I was given the task to work on the app it had been researched, designed and prototyped by another digital agency.

The pass off: After the app was in a prototype format, the client and agency parted ways and my team accepted the project to see it though to launch and beyond. I was assigned the Lead UX Designer for the project and started to identify the problems and hindrances that the client was having regarding the progress of the launch.

My initial queries:

• What was the client trying to achieve?
• How was he planning on captivating his targeted user group with this product?
• What need was this app fulfilling?
• How was the brand illustrating this need?
• What are the marketing channels that this app would be promoted through?
• What is the client's value proposition or value statement?

These were just some of the key questions I needed to answer so I gave him 2 PDFs to start with. One was a Brand Identity Model (Prism) and the other was a Business Model Canvas.

New information:

Once the business directives were communicated, I focused on

• re-defining the audience
• understanding the competitors and
• researching how the audience reviewed the competitor's products.

By researching the anonymous reviews that users left about each competitors products, I can see where the real pain points are and conversely, what features were appreciated. One of my goals of the project was to differentiate my clients app from the competition and serve a meaningful purpose in the marketplace. This goal was achieved by understanding what was lacking from the competition's products as well as what the users were hoping for in terms of service and features.

The user's greatest need?

One of the biggest strategic challenges was to define how the app would eventually be released to the intended audience and how. In order to be unique and meet the needs of the users, we discovered, through user interviews, surveys and contextual inquiry, that privacy, trust and security were paramount to the succes of this service. Parents wanted to feel that their children we safe in the hands of a stranger from both parties. Parents of babysitters and parents of the children that needed sitting. To tackle this challenge we devised an invite only signup feature.

Beta users were given access to the app and 10 invitations to give to parents that they trusted. Those 10 people were allowed to also invite 10 more parents and so on until the community grew around trust and local families. The app would only be initially launched in one neighborhood and would expand over time by demand.

Users were interviewed and tested to qualify this assumption and the reaction was very positive. A parent would be happy to let their teenage kids sit for a family that they could connect to on Facebook and know that someone has recommended them as a trusted parent in their neighborhood. A parent would conversely be happy to let a teenager sit for their child if they knew that the teenager has been recommended by a parent that they may know on Facebook.

Wireframing, testing and going live:

I broke the tasks down into User Stories and communicated these with the developers. I set up a cross-functional team meeting once a week where I had a chance to get answers to queries, engage in inclusive design sessions as well present solutions to the team.

After creating an agile development schedule with the developers, I was heavily focused on creating and testing wireframes and prototypes in Axure. I interviewed many potential babysitters and rewarded them with Starbucks credit for 30 minutes of their time. This helped validate and often invalidate my assumptions and designs in regard to the sitter signup and general user flow through the app. I made a matrix of the results and found patterns and strong user behaviors that could influence my design to reach the goal of an intuitive user experience.

A few months later we went live as a Private Beta launch. The feedback was recorded and utilized to polish the interactive behaviors of the app and fine tune the experience. Two weeks later we went into a soft launch where the first round of invited post beta users were given access to the app. Further refining was made to the app before a final and official launch was made.

Key take aways:

• Create an action plan and get sign off or approval from the entire team and stakeholders.
• Include your client in the inclusive design sessions, however, monitor their creative control.
• Always present and evangelize UX methodology and processes to the client and new team members before commencing any work.
• Beta users groups are ideal for soft launching an app for vital feedback.
• Creating an agile development schedule helps keep the entire team focused on their tasks and when they need to be created, tested and delivered to development (with guides, prototypes and/or annotations).
• Cross-functional teams are fun. Remember to laugh and stay light. At the end of the day, if you do all you can to the best of your knowledge, there will always be room for a laugh. It helps ground everyone and be invited back by the client for more work.