UX designed for parents and guardians
Milestones Early Educational Community Redesign
May 2022 – Anticipated release August 2022
Synopsis:
This project was based around improving the user experience for parents and guardians of young children using the Milestones Early Education Community website to learn more information and enroll their child or children.
We aimed to solve the issue of low conversion rates, ultimately boosting tour requests of the facility. In order to achieve this goal, my team redesigned the website and updated the information architecture of the home page.
Role:
UX/UI Designer
Contributions:
Analyzed the research findings
Constructed the Information Architecture
Created strong brand elements
Designed and prototype using Adobe Xd
Participated in the QA process until finalized site
1: Problem Statements Overview
1: 01
“The user is a new parent who has a full-time job and is looking for childcare assistance because they do not have the time to watch over the child and play with the child.”
1: 02
“The user is a guardian who works part time and is looking for an environment that will promote growth and healthy development for the child because this will help the child succeed further in their life. “
1: 03
“The user is a parent to a child that has disabilities, who works full time and is looking for an environment that will accomodate her child’s disabilities while providing amazing care. The user cannot watch her child during the day and is in need of a daycare service that meets her child’s unique needs. “
2: The Users
2: 01 | Research Summary
The research conducted for this project consisted of gathering secondary source qualitative and quantitative data. Majority of the insights used to develop the personas and user pain points came from Pew Research Center and feedback from the client about the typical behaviors of their target audience. A user journey map was also used to help the site map and information architecture.
2: 02 | Personas
Ryan
Age: 26
Job Title: Bank Manager
Education: Bachelors Degrees
Income: 65k Household Income
Family: Long-term relationship, two cats
My wife is starting an on-site job in two weeks and no longer can watch our 3 yo during the day. We need a facility that is clean and highly-rated so we can trust our daughter is in good hands while we work full-time jobs.
Pam & Gerald
Age: Pam: 60 Gerald: 62
Job Title: Both work part time
Education: GED’s
Income: 70k Household Income
Family: Married, 3 adult children, one grandson
Due to unfortunate circumstances, my husband and I are the primary caretakers of our grandson. We have heard the positives of socializing young children with other kids their age, that is why we would like to enroll him in an early educational community.
Amelia
Age: 27
Job Title: Certified Nurse
Education: Associates Degree
Income: 55k Household Income
Family: Single mom, 1 child with disabilities
My daughter is everything to me. She was born with Usher Syndrome and was diagnosed at 3 years old. We just moved to the area and need to find a facility that knows how to interact with children with disabilities. Because of my daughters condition, she often uses her wheel chair so the facility needs to be one story or have elevators.
2: 02 | User Pain Points
Ryan | Parents that work full-time | 22-34 years old
- My child needs to eat REAL food. I can’t have them eating junk food.
- I would like to see what the environment looks like before booking a tour.
- I would like to see what the staff have some qualifications to take care of my child.
- What are other people saying about this daycare facility.
- I need a place that opens early since I need to be at work at 6:15am.
Pam & Gerald| Working or retired (Kinship Relationship) | 40-66 years old
- I want my grandchild to learn lots. Will they learn something from being in their care compared to other daycares in the area?
- What are the COVID-19 measures? My husband an I are getting up there in age and take COVID-19 seriously.
- Who will be watching over and teaching my child? I would like to learn more about them before booking a tour.
- Booking a tour should be fast and easy, I would like to be contacted via phone number instead of a email. I don’t check my email very often.
- What is security like? What is the drop off process?
- It would be nice to meet the other parents or guardians in my child’s class so I can arrange play dates.
Amelia | Working parent of a child with disabilities | 22-36 years old
- Does the parking lot have a place for my van to park? My child typically uses a wheelchair ramp, so a handicap parking space would be nice!
- The property HAS TO have wheelchair accessibility (preferably only one story).
- Are the staff trained to help my daughter with the rest room? Are the rest rooms wheel chair accessible?
- I would like to check out pictures of the facility before investing time into a tour. Since I am a single mother, I have very limited free time away from work. I would like a place that is bright and cheery but not overstimulating.
- Do the materials, books and pictures reflect diversity, including children with special needs?
- I would like to establish a close relationship with my child’s caretakers when she is at daycare. I would love to work together to establish goals for my daughter with special needs.
2: 03 | User Journey Map
3: Design Process
3: 01 | Inspiration
Milestones had previous branding done to create the look and feel that they want to showcase. It was my job to take this outdated website and give it a user experience facelift. Keeping in mind the logo, colors, and previous elements of the previous site, I began researching for a design that would increase user engagement while still staying true to the brand.
3: 02 | Ideation
Using a site map created by the UX project lead, I was able to build the information architecture into the wireframes. These wireframes were a base for the next step, creating high-fidelity prototypes. Sketching out ideas before opening Adobe XD saves time and typically creates better end products for the user.
3: 03 | High-fidelity Prototype [First Draft]
Typically after the hand-drawn wireframes, my team would create a low-fidelity to test that all the functions are working correctly. But because of time restraints we went ahead and umped to high-fidelity prototypes to speed up the process.
The goal of this first draft is to see how the design feels structure wise going from a wire-frame to a digital design. Branding begins to be introduced. The construction of the first page in the user journey (for this instance the homepage) is used to create the visual characteristics that will be carried throughout the website. This typically includes colors, buttons, branding elements, header and footer, and other components that may be used on other pages.
3: 04 | High-fidelity Prototype [Finalized Draft]
4: Post-Development QA Process
Our developers translate the prototype into a functional WordPress staging website. Next step is to comb through the site to check all functionalities of the prototype were successfully translated into code. This process is critical since the last thing we want is for a user to find a break or user obstacle. Content entry and usability testing occurs during this phase of production. I worked with the client and our in-house content creator to fill in the areas of the site that were missing images or content. This process typically takes a few months depending on the clients responsiveness. The staging site of Milestones Early Education Community is anticipated to go live in September 2022.
View The Prototype
5: Reflection & Growth Areas
Over the course of the project the team had their growth and triumph moments. One in particular was convincing the client to let go of the previous background design and typography, we were able to guide them through the process and provide data that backed up our design decisions.
By using a user-centric approach and keeping diversity in mind, we were able to solve the problem statements and provide a website that decreased bounce rates and increased lead generation. The following points accredited these growth areas:
- Bright and inviting imagery. Created high-contrast focus areas for company selling points.
- Added a reviews section and a gallery section to the home page to satisfy user pain points.
- Boosted the branding throughout the site.
- Carefully placed CTAs to help users navigate the site to find exactly what they are looking for.
