In this project, our team designed a website for a midwife specializing in home-birth to simplify the process of connecting with expecting mothers. Our goal was to provide clear, accessible information about home-birth services while easing the midwife’s workload with a more efficient inquiry and booking process. Since Sonja, the midwife previously had no website, we tailored this new platform to her expertise, making her services more approachable for expecting mothers.
Role
UX/UI Designer
Team
3 UX/UI Designers
Date, duration
2024 December, 2 weeks
Tools
Figma, Figjam, Google Forms
Research
In Germany, every pregnant woman is entitled to the support of a midwife during pregnancy, birth and in the post-partum period, but it is sadly not that easy. Our research involved one stakeholder interview, 14 survey responses, and 2 user interviews, revealing significant challenges for both midwives and expecting mothers.
Many pregnant women struggle to find clear information and available midwifery services. Word-of-mouth remains the primary method for finding a midwife, and first-time mothers, in particular, often feel uncertain about when and where to start their search.
For the midwife, the process is equally challenging. She is overwhelmed with too many inquiries and often has to say no. Sonja, our stakeholder can have only 2 new clients per month, she can’t take on everyone. It’s also hard for her to decide which clients to prioritize, especially those needing home birth support.
Persona
Meet Julia, our persona. She is expecting her first child and has started the process of finding a midwife. Julia wants to have a positive birth experience where she feels empowered, secure, and well-informed. After hearing her colleagues' stories about home birth and doing her own research, she is very interested in this option. However, Julia hasn’t found a midwife yet, and the uncertainty is starting to stress her out.
UJM
Julia wants to have a positive birth experience where she feels empowered, secure, and well-informed. When weeks go by without a confirmation from an available midwife, she starts to worry and anxiety begins to set in.
How might we connect her with a midwife easier and quicker? And from the perspective of our stakeholder, how can we help the midwife to prioritize pregnant women who best match her home birth services?
Problem statement
Writing about her journey led us to understand her better and made us think about opportunities on how we could help her reach her goal; to maintain her commitment to reduce sugar consumption. We defined the problem statement to reflect the challenges:
Sitemap
It was clear early on that Sonja’s expertise is home birth. When I was working on the sitemap I realised that we failed to learn more about her other services. It would have been good to include some of them on the sitemap. Although those services would not be part of the user flow “Happy path” to achieve a home birth consultation, they would have led to a fuller website experience.
User flow
To meet our client’s need for identifying the 'right' clients, we start by asking a few questions: interest in home birth, zip code, and due date. Availability is then shown only for clients who align with Sonja’s focus—such as those interested in home birth.
First, I mapped out the low-fidelity wireframes for mobile. The project requirement was a desktop site, but I found it useful to start from a small screen and scale up from there. Feedback from the concept testers showed plenty of room for improvement, such as: the booking was too far down on the homepage, the calendar had a poor contrast and the confirmation page required additional content.
Style tile
We wanted the design to reflect Sonja’s sunny personality. We chose a palette of sunny yellows and earthy tones to reflect warmth and approachability. The combination of typefaces express a “friendly professional” approach, the serif typeface is for a classy and approachable look, the sans-serif option is for a modern, slick complement.
High-fidelity prototype
Outcomes & lessons
This project was tough from the start; the topic itself was not the easiest, sickness reduced our small group and we were not in complete harmony either. As someone was always missing during the Prototyping and Testing stage of the Design Thinking process, we needed additional time for catching up. This made communication and progress slower. Another challenge was that all of us had only completed one project before and our working styles and amount of dedication differed from each other. We had varying knowledge about midwifery and steps required time and lengthy discussions to align. We’re all learning, of course, so these steps were still necessary.
