Need Statement
Parents need a personalised solution to take care of their children while working on other tasks.
Overview
Buzz Connect is a project which begins in a hackathon in a team of 5.
Our team ended up making an application which provides a matchmaking service for parents and affectionate childcarers who need to juggle their time between multiple tasks at the same time.
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UX Research
Interface Design
Branding
Visual Design
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Figma
Illustrator
After Effects
Competitive Analysis
HelloToby
Strength
Their babysitter service is easy to access which is available using web browser or their mobile app. It matches with a babysitter instantly after answer a few questions which makes it easy to use. It connects with a babysitter fast and handy.
Weakness
The profile page of babysitters provide limited information. It is hard to establish trust before using the service.
Opportunities
Being a matchmaking platform on the child-caring industry, it has a technology advantage to have this platform to perform the matchmaking process.
Threats
Users lack of trust towards an automatic matchmaking service for babysitter because of the personalised nature of the industry.
BabySitterHK
Strength
It provides online babysitting service, the process is relatively easy that is to fill out a single form to find a suitable match.
Weakness
Users will have to wait for the business to contact them after filling out the form. There is a delay of response unlike using an App.
Opportunities
They have an extended network of babysitters which enables the business to provide services that meets the requirements of the users easier.
Threats
Emerging matchmaking platforms which provides similar can establish their network with the help of technology.
Nanny & Me
Strength
It focuses on a caring expat babysitting service and it offers a service that is more intimate for the children and the family.
Weakness
Same as BabySitterHK, users will have to wait for the business to contact them. There is a delay of response unlike using an App.
Opportunities
They are comparatively new to the market and their strategy of a more caring service is relatively unique.
Threats
A lack of transparency of the selection criteria of babysitters makes the matching process slightly questionable.
Survey
We have talked to some parents (both interviews on the street and texting) and did some research online and found that the need of childcarer increased because of the work from home situation resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic, below are some of the findings.
Some questions we prepared for the interview
We focused on the work from home situation in the questions regarding the difficulties that families have when they are all at home.
List of questions
To select our target groups of users
Do you have any children?
How old are your children?
Do you work from home?
Do you live with your family?
To understand the situation of their family during work from home
What causes the problem?
Can you describe the worst WFH day?
Does your family communicate differently?
Do you enjoy WFH? Why if not?
Can you describe the best WFH day?
What would you change if WFH lasts forever?
What is the WFH setup
What is the software you use?
How different it is compared to your office?
How do you communicate with colleagues?
Do you have a private workspace?
We have also sorted the results of our interviews into clusters
Observations
It is harder to focus on work because of space limitation at home.
Disturbance from children is annoying.
Working efficiency is lowered because of delayed response.
Some parents like seeing their children more.
Relationship with colleagues is affected because there is no physical contact.
Direct Quotes
“I need space”
“I purposely go out to work to avoid facing kids at home”
“Kids who argue among themselves are disturbing”
“I have better communication with family”
Post-it notes are grouped and categorised
Insight 1
Attention is needed for multiple tasks
Insight 2
Stressful parents need personal space
Insight 3
Parents want affectionate childcarers
Parents need the space and time to allocate themselves between tasks.
Ideation
We came up with several ideas based on the insights and observations we had to better allocate the time and space within a family.
Personal space box (bottom), a movable gadget to separate space
One-stop-shop family assistance (left), a matching platform
When can we meet card (right), a card game
After a round of votes, we have decided to further develop the matching platform, One-stop-shop family assistance because of the 3 aspects below.
Desirability - An application is more desirable because it does not require any physical space when using
Feasibility - Building a matching platform is technically feasible for our team
Viability - It is easier for parents to download an app than to buy tangible products
Target Users
Busy Parents
Affectionate Caregiver
Vivian is a busy parent.
“It is frustrating when my child yearns for attention while I have a meeting that I cannot skip. I feel stressed because I don’t want to upset my child or miss a deadline”
Vivian
35 years old | Married | Marketing Manager | Mother of two children aged 9 and 6
Vivian is a marketing manager as well as a mother of 2 children while aiming high in her career she wants her children to grow up in a loving environment as well. It is impossible for her to focus on both of it in a work from home situation.
Needs and Goals
Vivian needs someone to take care of her children and allows her to focus on one thing at a time.
Vivian needs more flexibility than a traditional live-in helper due to limited living space.
Vivian wants more familiarity with the caregiver instead of an employer-employee relationship.
Vivian has a shifting schedule and she plans her schedule 1 to 2 weeks ahead, it would be ideal if she can plan the time of the caregiver at that same time.
Motivation
Vivian wants an affectionate caregiver for her children without compromising on her career.
Vivian wants a more personalised caregiver for her children.
Activities
Vivian works from 9 to 6 and needs to OT occasionally.
Often uses work management app or software to plan her schedule ahead.
Pain Points
Need to take care of her children while work at the same time.
Traditional live-in helpers require more living space for them.
Traditional live-in helpers are also inflexible due to law and regulations.
A regular employer-employee relationship is not and ideal environment for her children to grow up in.
Macy is a affectionate caregiver
“I love children and my children now have a job and their own home.”
Macy
55 years old | Married | Housewife | Mother of two children aged 28 and 25
Macy is a housewife. her children has grown up and moved out and she has some spare time for herself now. She loves children and would love to help other mothers with the time she have.
Needs and Goals
Macy wants to play with children.
Macy would like to help other mothers.
Macy wants to use her spare time on something meaningful.
Macy wants to share her parenting knowledge with other parents.
Motivation
Macy loves children.
Macy can get to know other parents.
Activities
Macy goes to interest classes sometimes to learn during her free time.
Sometimes, Macy finishes housework and have nothing to do after it.
Pain Points
She loves children but her children have grown up.
She has some spare time but not sure how to use them well.
She wants to spend her time meaningfully.
Prototyping
Below illustrates the minimal viable function of the platform which is to connect with the suitable user. no matter you are a parent looking for help or looking to help others.
This is the first wireframe we did for the matchmaking platform which indicates the essential details to be input by the user.
Having the most essential function in mind, there are two problems we had discovered and additional functions were added to tackle them.
Finding users and establishing trust between them
Digital communities of parenting were built for parents to share thoughts and information. The goal of these communities are for parents to expand user’s network and increase the user base of Buzz Connect. These communities are also channels for parents to get to know other users to establish trust on the platform.
2. Incentives to join
A points system was used as an incentive for parents to join Buzz Connect. It is the “currency” of this platform, childcarers can earn points after taking care of the children that was matched for them. These points can be used to exchange for rewards including vouchers or products related to parenting.
First community page wireframe
There are communities in different categories of topics like arts. sports and school, etc. while other users are shown to help users get to know each other.
Version 1
A prototype in higher-fidelity is created to visualise the match-making platform. It contains the match-making process and the community feature of the product.
(Left) Parents will need to fill out the time, location, services needed and remarks.
(Middle) Parents input details of their own
(Right) The system will match them with a caregiver
Community page
We took references from social media platforms and built a all-in-one page to get to know other users on the platform
Version 2
After making version 1 of the design, several problems was discovered after asking some users.
This version 2 was created to tackle the problems below.
The connecting parents and caregiver process is too simple and it does not provide enough information a caregiver needs to understand the situation of a family. Therefore, this process will likely to pair up inappropriate matches.
Parents does not have enough information of the caregiver and it is hard for them to establish trust in the match making process.
Community page provides too much information which makes it hard for users to navigate in the page.
Solutions
More relevant details are added including the age and the number of children, as these are one of the key information a caregiver would want to know.
A profile page with video to introduce the users themselves are added to give other users a more thorough understanding.
3. Information in the community page is trimmed down to 3 sections, the search function, recommended topics and the meetups.
A more detailed version of task flow, user flow and wireframes were developed.
Task Flow
Wireframe
User Flow
Updated wireframe with other functions
Branding
Buzz is a friendly bumble bee that helps parents with a busy schedule. He can connect parents and the most suitable caregiver in a split second.
There are three keywords I have in my mind when I create the branding of Buzz Connect.
Vibrant - A vibrant community
Cartoonish - Buzz is here for the kids
Clean - Professional match making service
Artistic Direction
A handful of colors were picked to create a vibrant look and feel. Strokes were also added to make the look and feel more cartoonish.
A font with geometric and round-edged feature was picked to give the interface a clean yet slightly cartoonish feeling.
The scale system of the typeface.
The Product
Connect
As the main function of Buzz Connect, this connect function is made as easy as possible. Below is the flow to connect a helper when you need help.
Similarly, the process is shown below when you want to help others.
Community
The community page is built for parents to learn more about other users and different topics of parenting. Parents can search for areas of their interest, recommended topics or even meetups.
Messages
Users can find their conversations with connected helpers here at the message page. It saves users the time to go back and forth between messengers and the Buzz Connect app.
Redeem
The redeem page is where parents use their credits earned from helping others. There are different categories of parenting items including vouchers to workshops sponsored by various organisations.
Profile
Users can find and edit their profile here, as well as their current match with other users. Settings of the app can also be found here including matching history to redeem item wishlist.
Conclusion
Understanding the user
This is a chance for me to understand what the user needs before jumping into the solution I am providing, instead of assuming what the users need, user research is essential to build a product that solves users’ problem. Empathy is the key.
2. Prototype testing
I can only improve my design based on the feedback I received from the users. It become part of the design process which is a ongoing discourse.