Helping parents find the perfect playspace
Play & Seek
Tools
Figma, Miro
My Role
UX/UI Designer
Skills Utilized
User Flows, Competitor Analysis, Guerilla Testing, Wireframing, User Research, Affinity Mapping, Personas, User Stories, Sitemaps, Prototyping, Visual Design, Branding, UsabilityTesting
About
Every parent has a story or can remember a time when they struggled to find a play space to take their kids to. They do a generic Google search to find a play space, make the trip over with kids in tow, only to arrive and find that the play space is missing key features that they need for their family. This project emerged from this well-known frustration that parents, including myself, have gone through. My main objective is to create an app that helps parents have an easier time finding a playspace.
Problem
Going outside of the home to play is an important aspect of healthy development for children. Parents need more efficient ways to find playspaces that meet their families' individual needs.
Process
I ran 4 a month project conducting research, designing, and testing using the design thinking methodology:
Secondary Research
I conducted secondary research to better understand the problem space and empathize with my end users. I found articles and studies that supported my problem statement and provided insights into the challenges that my end users face.
“If you have ever been on the hunt for a great playground for your kids, you know the struggle of finding the right one. It can be time-consuming and stressful if you don’t know where to look.”
Survey/Screener
After conducting secondary research, I sent out a questionnaire that was completed by 23 people. This helped me gain more quantitative data about play space preferences and screen for interviewees who represented my target audience.
Interview Insights
I conducted semi-structured interviews with 5 participants of diverse backgrounds. I used warm-up questions to get participants comfortable, asked non-leading questions, and followed up to get rich qualitative data. I used the Critical Incident Technique for a few questions. The interview process led me to discover some key user pain points:
“I want to see reviews so that I know what we are getting ourselves into”
“We just moved so finding a playspace is harder since we are unfamiliar with the area”
“Finding a playspace becomes another thing I have to do and make sure I have the time for and the mental space for”
“The things we look for in playgrounds are different from when our kids were younger”
Research Synthesis
I conducted interviews and created an affinity map to identify patterns and create personas. I referred to these personas throughout the design process to ensure that my app met the needs of my users. This analysis led me to identify key features that Play & Seek needed to have in order to solve user pain points.
Sitemap
As a first step in building the app, I created a sitemap to understand the information architecture of the app.
User Flows
I defined 2 user red routes and created user flows in order to pin-point the critical paths that my users will take when using the app.
Sketches
I sketched layouts to visualize the UI of my screens.
Wireframes
I drafted simple wireframes to focus on the functionality of my app. I then received feedback from two UX/UI professionals and incorporated their suggestions into my designs.
Moodboard
Once the wireframes were completed, I created a mood board to represent the visual aesthetics of Play & Seek. I frequently referred back to this mood board when creating the high-fidelity screens.
User Testing
I conducted two rounds of usability testing on my high-fidelity screens with five users in each round to test the functionality of Play & Seek. This revealed a few key user issues.
Filter Screen - 4 out of 5 participants found the filter screen frustrating due to its excessive features and uniform buttons.
Solution - Categorized the features. Put popular features at the top. Alphabetized the features. Made the popular features button larger.
Sign-In Screen - Participants found the sign-in section confusing because it was unclear whether they were signing in or signing up. They were used to seeing both options on the screen, but there was only one option this time.
Solution - Screen re-design based on industry best practices.
Playspace Detail Screen - Some of the non-interactive text copy looked like buttons, which confused users.
Solution - Redesign non-interactive text in the playspace to make it clear that it is not clickable.
More iterations of Filter Page
This page was the trickiest and yielded the most mixed user data. I would like to do more in depth user testing on the filter page to make sure that my re-design works as intended.
ITERATION 1
Final Design
Next Steps
ITERATION 1
Playspace Recommendations
I’d like to add a feature that recommends playspaces to users based on their favorites.
ITERATION 2
FINAL SCREEN
Retrospective
This was my first UX/UI project. If I could go back, I would advise myself to take better notes, organize my files better, and keep the problem statement in mind.
ITERATION 1
FINAL SCREEN
FINAL SCREEN