Nurture

  • Experience Design (Spring 2025)

  • Figma, Illustration

  • 8 weeks

Overview

Nurture is a collaborative parenting app that simplifies daily care, milestone tracking, and communication between caregivers. It helps parents stay organized and in sync, so they can focus on what matters most—raising their little one. With Nurture, coordination is easier, while still valuing the importance of verbal communication in the parenting journey.

The Problem

First-time parents often feel overwhelmed by the lack of a centralized tool to track their baby’s care, milestones, and resources. Existing parenting apps primarily focus on specific aspects such as health logs, or pregnancy tracking but they don’t support shared responsibilities between caregivers. This leads to miscommunication, added stress, and an uneven mental load in co-parenting.

Research

To understand the challenges of first-time parents, I conducted surveys and user interviews with a mom and dad. This revealed key pain points like mental load, task management struggles, and communication gaps. While verbal communication remains essential, the challenge of forgetting tasks due to busy schedules is a common issue. These insights informed the design of a collaborative co-parenting app that supports parents in staying organized and coordinated, without replacing the need for direct communication. (Sources: App Magic Statista 2024, Google Forms, and Momwell)

Competitive Analysis

I analyzed parenting and co-parenting apps to uncover gaps in task management, communication, and resource accessibility. While many provide scheduling and tracking, they often fall short in seamless collaboration, leaving parents without an intuitive way to coordinate and share responsibilities.

User Interviews

I conducted user interviews with a first-time mom and dad, alongside gathering survey responses from existing parents. This helped me uncover key pain points, challenges, and preferences related to parenting and co-parenting. The interviews provided valuable emotional insights into their daily routines and frustrations, while the surveys offered quantitative data on common struggles, habits, gaps in current parenting tools and what they are looking for.

User Personas

I created two user personas based on interviews with a first-time mom and dad to capture both perspectives. This helped identify key challenges and needs, allowing me to design a collaborative app that addresses the unique experiences of each parent for a more balanced co-parenting experience

Journey Map

A journey map was created for the user persona, Mia, a first-time mom with a hybrid work schedule, showing how she manages baby duties in the morning and hands off care to her partner in the afternoon before heading to work. There are key moments that helps us identify the pain points, allowing the app design to better address these challenges for a smoother experience.

How Might We…

  • Help first-time parents seamlessly track and share caregiving tasks?

  • Enable parents to stay in sync in communicating effectively?

  • Provide reliable parenting guidance in an easy-to-use format?

  • Reduce mental load by making responsibilities more visible and balanced?

Design Concept

We will design a collaborative experience that turns the stress of parenting into a seamless rhythm, helping co-parents stay connected and navigate the unpredictable nature of early parenthood with confidence and ease.

Key Insights

Our research, including surveys and user interviews, revealed key challenges parents face, such as mental load, task management struggles, and communication gaps. Parents expressed the need for a more streamlined way to coordinate responsibilities without relying solely on memory or scattered notes. These insights provided a strong foundation for sketching, ensuring the app addresses real needs with intuitive and collaborative solutions.

Low-Fidelity Sketch

I started with low-fidelity sketches to map out the app’s core functionalities, focusing on simplicity and ease of use. Key features include a shared calendar for scheduling, a dashboard for an overview of tasks, an add task function for assigning responsibilities, and a quick comment feature for seamless communication. These early sketches helped define the user flow and ensure an intuitive co-parenting experience.

User Testing & Notes

User testing was conducted to identify and resolve any usability issues, ensuring the app remains intuitive and supportive rather than overwhelming. By gathering feedback from parents, we refined features to enhance clarity, simplify navigation, and maintain a balance between structure and flexibility. This process helped avoid unnecessary complexity while reinforcing the app’s role as a helpful tool rather than an added stressor.

High-Fidelity Prototype

In the high-fidelity prototype, parents can easily invite their partner via a seamless invitation link, allowing them to join the app and start collaborating instantly. This ensures a smooth onboarding experience, making it effortless for both parents to coordinate tasks, share updates, and stay organized together.

Storyboard

Branding

The UI of Nurture features bright, pastel, and eye-friendly colors, creating a calming and welcoming atmosphere for parents. The design is intentionally gender-neutral, ensuring it appeals to a diverse audience. The color palette and overall aesthetic are warm and heartwarming, promoting a sense of comfort and support, which enhances the user experience and encourages engagement.

Takeaways

This project gave me a deeper understanding of the mental and emotional load that first-time parents face. It streamlines responsibilities without replacing personal interaction, offering a balanced co-parenting solution. It made me appreciate the complexities of parenting and reinforced my passion for creating user-centric solutions that truly support our users.