BACK

weeve

2025

OVERVIEW

RESEARCH

PROBLEM

IDEATE

PROTOTYPE

FINAL PRODUCT

RESUME

FRANCHESCA SAMONTE 2025. LAST UPDATE: FEB 2025

BRIEF

Designing for transitions. In this university studio project, we explored the transition into motherhood, highlighting the importance of a centralised and continuous maternal support system; one that helps new mothers to overcome mental and physical challenges.

DURATION

13 Weeks (Aug - Nov)

TEAM

Myself + 4 Team Members

METHODS + TOOLS

UX/UI

USER RESEARCH

PROTOTYPING

FIGMA

HIGH DISTINCTION

introduction

“Postpartum mothers often feel like the ’invisible patient’ once focus shifts solely to the baby.” (Kemp et al., 2024)

Motherhood is one of the most universal yet individual human experiences for women. It's profound and complex, often filled with personal experiences that drastically change identities and lifestyles. However at this pivotal time, many mothers feel neglected as their needs and wellbeing become secondary to their baby's.

"It takes a village to raise a child". It also takes a village to support a mother.

The complexity of a mother's transition is mirrored by the existing ecosystem surrounding mothers, involving healthcare providers, digital tools, online communities and peers. Whilst these all provide a level of support, they aren't interlinked or are hard to access, therefore creating gaps in the holistic care that new mothers need to overcome physical and mental challenges.

And it's even more difficult for mums in rural areas. Over 70% of rural mothers delayed seeking healthcare due to difficulties in accessing or finding appropriate services (Motherland, 2023).

TRANSITION TO MOTHERHOOD

TRANSITION TO MOTHERHOOD

ECOSYSTEM

ECOSYSTEM

PRECEDENTS

Current apps and services were primarily focused on baby care and there was limited mental and emotional support for the mother. This gap highlights the potential for interventions that recenter the mother’s holistic wellbeing.

I was able to resonate with motherhood due to my identity and knowing the experiences of mothers around me. This also meant that I knew how difficult it can be, and so I was really keen on having the opportunity to design a solution that could support the needs and wellbeing of mothers.

research

PRIMARY RESEARCH

Our Research Objectives

What things help or make it harder for you to adjust to being a mum?
How do mothers cope with the challenges and internal struggles of motherhood?
How can mums maintain a sense of their own self, while being a mother?
How do women of colour (WOC), mothers from low socio-economic backgrounds and regional locations navigate the transition into motherhood, including intersections of cultural expectations, financial constraints and systemic inequities?

What things help or make it harder for you to adjust to being a mum?
How do mothers cope with the challenges and internal struggles of motherhood?
How can mums maintain a sense of their own self, while being a mother?
How do women of colour (WOC), mothers from low socio-economic backgrounds and regional locations navigate the transition into motherhood, including intersections of cultural expectations, financial constraints and systemic inequities?

We conducted four methods of research to answer these objectives and obtain insights to refine our problem space.

Online Ethnography

Through online ethnography, we were able to unobtrusively observe genuine thoughts, queries, concerns and interactions of our target audience, relating to experiences within motherhood.

Interviews

We conducted semi-structured interviews with 4 participants of varying backgrounds (including one father), allowing us to obtain richer qualitative insights based on unique personal experiences.

Cultural Probes

5 mothers received a set of probes which produced meaningful and personal reflections about motherhood as a journey and their reshaped identities.

Survey

We sent out a short survey to relevant communities on Facebook Reddit in order to obtain data about maternal support, resources and the impact of demographics leading up to the postpartum period. It was difficult to gather responses due to permissions and rules in these safe spaces.

We sent out a short survey to relevant communities on Facebook Reddit to obtain data about maternal support, resources and the impact of demographics leading up to the postpartum period. It was difficult to gather responses due to permissions and rules in these safe spaces.

problem

ANALYSIS

For each research method, we extracted key quotes and observations and collated them into affinity diagrams (thematic analysis) to identify any underlying patterns. These patterns were encapsulated as codes, grouped under themes. For our design probes and interviews, we expanded on the second level themes by creating high-level statements to abstract the data.

Online Ethnography

Interviews

Cultural Probes

Survey

SYNTHESIS

We clustered the findings from the online ethnography and survey, and the high-level statements into another affinity diagram. This enabled us to validate identified patterns across all data sources and articulate clear insights to define the problem.

We also brainstormed some quick ideas in the purple stickies based on the pink insights.

Through this, we generated five key insights:

Mother-to-mother support normalises struggles and reduces isolation by offering reassurance and intimate care that professional services often cannot provide.

Professional support during pregnancy, but reduces significantly postpartum when mothers are most vulnerable to mental health challenges.

Practical struggles of child-reading responsibilities and self-care tradeoffs increase mental health risk.

The recovery and wellbeing of a mother is dependant on the ability of partners, family and communities to proactively step in.

Engaged children, often through outdoor activities, lead to more manageable days for mothers, reducing parental stress while supporting both child behaviour and maternal wellbeing.

REFINED PROBLEM

Problem Statement

The transition to motherhood poses many concerns for young Australian mothers in the perinatal and postpartum stages. Establishing new routines, preserving their self-identity, and maintaining adequate mental and physical health are prevalent challenges. With up to 1 in 5 women experiencing symptoms of anxiety, depression, or both during pregnancy and/or following birth, an opportunity remains for further support in wellbeing and early caregiving.

How Might We…

Design an integrated and mother-centric support system that provides accessible education, emotional connection, and shared understanding to empower both mothers and their support network to care together?

ideate

GENERATING IDEAS

Crazy 8s

We began our ideation stage with Crazy 8s for rapid generation. Ideas were mostly focused on supporting the wellbeing of mothers, and providing ease as they transition into their new lifestyles.

Role-playing

From Crazy 8s, we were drawn towards the idea of cultivating community spaces for mothers (“mother meetups") as we believed it strongly aligned with our key insights. We decided to elaborate on this idea/user journey through role-playing.

Worst Possible Ideas

Mostly consisted of concepts that aggravated mothers’ stress and worries, finances and child-rearing responsibilities. The flipped ideas reaffirmed our exisiting ones, establishing a solid starting point for further conceptualisation.

EARLY CONCEPTS

Mummy Wellbeing Meetups

Program supplemented by an interactive app to help mothers to organise local group gatherings or 1:1 sessions that develop peer connections and provide crucial on-site professional support.

Sketches

Storyboard

Mother Garden

A wellbeing app for mothers, in which they digitally nurture their garden as they partake in self-care activities, including journaling, self-affirmations, accessing resources and consultations for mental and emotional health.

Sketches

Storyboard

TAKING A STEP BACK…

Our tutor suggested we consider stakeholders other than the mother.

Circling back to the discover stage, we used online ethnography to learn more about the experiences of partners, as well as the experiences of mothers with their partner. It was important that we explored both POVs, to obtain a holistic understanding.

After gathering and coding quotes and observations, we conducted thematic analysis to define six themes that align with our key insights and highlight the level of support mothers need from their partners:

A protective advocate

Routine personal time for the mother

A knowledgeable, competent and trustworthy carer

An attentive and proactive partner

Physical care for a breastfeeding mother

A pillar of emotional support

SELECTING CONCEPT

We brainstormed additional concepts that encapsulate the themes above, and selected our final solution using a decision matrix. Moving forward, we decided to combine our top three concepts into one app, as we believed this would wholly address our "how might we".

As mentioned earlier, parts of a mother's ecosystem are often not interlinked or hard to access. Thus, we were set on designing a centralised experience that both provides practical support for mothers and encourages the proactiveness of partners and communities.

Brainstorm

Decision Matrix of Top 3 Concepts

Our detour to our solution reminded me that the design process is not always linear. To move forward, we sometimes have to step back. Discovering more about partners reminded and helped us to understand the significance of the role they play, and subsequently the impact they can have on the wellbeing of mothers through our solution.

prototype

OUR PROCESS

LOW-FIDELITY

MID-FIDELITY

USER TESTING

HIGH-FIDELITY

EXPERT TESTING

FINAL MOCKUP

LOW-FIDELITY

Before we began developing our prototype, we planned out the app's information architecture and app flow through sketches and diagrams. They weren't perfect, but provided us with a good overview of how we could integrate each of our ideated concepts into one experience. It was crucial that we made sure each screen had intention; an insight to back it.

We used our original sketches from "Mummy Wellbeing Meetups". These are quick sketches for additional screens.

Information Architecture

MID-FIDELITY

Our focus at this stage was developing the content hierarchy, interactions and user task flows for the mother and partner. The following features and design principles guided our design decisions:

Conventionality from existing apps such as Facebook, Instagram and Reddit.

Consistency of visual and functional elements.

Familiarity improves learnability, and reduces cognitive load.

Streamlined onboarding and navigation with limited touch points.

Increases efficiency and overall usability.

Mid-fidelity Screens

USER TESTING

Testing Protocol

We set up simultaneous think-aloud tests for each user flow (mother + partner) for efficiency.

PRE-TEST SURVEY

Obtain anonymous demographic data and consent of participant.

THINK-ALOUD

Verbalise participant's thought process, expectations and uncertainties.

SEQ SCORING

Obtain immediate feedback and participant's perceived difficulty of task.

POST-TEST SURVEY

Assess overall difficulty with a JEQ score, and usability with a SUS score.

POST-TEST INTERVIEW

Learn about user's understanding of app's use-context and reasons behind their interactions.

Mum Flow

Onboarding
Accessing groups:
- Group feed with posts
- Viewing meet-up information

Partner Flow

Onboarding
Education modules
Booking appointment for Mum via Calendar - access to 1:1 sessions with professionals

Swipe left or right to see cards

We also provided participants with context and referencing using printed scenario cards and task cards, improving the efficiency of the testing process.

Our Evaluation Objectives

Could users could successfully navigate the app without guidance and errors?
Were features, labelling and information hierarchy understandable, so that learnability is streamlined?
How seamlessly could the app adapt its features and content according to the context of the user; whether they are the mother or partner?
- Were the exclusivity of resources and shared elements logical and intuitive?

Could users could successfully navigate the app without guidance and errors?
Were features, labelling and information hierarchy understandable, so that learnability is streamlined?
How seamlessly could the app adapt its features and content according to the context of the user; whether they are the mother or partner?
- Were the exclusivity of resources and shared elements logical and intuitive?

The Results...

We conducted user testing with a total of 12 participants, in addition to one pilot participant who help us to refine our protocol. Participants were aged 18 to 44 years old, with a mix of genders and assigned roles (flows), reducing user bias and providing us with a mix of perspectives.

75.4

Average SUS (Mother)

72.5

Average SUS (Partner)

Our SUS scores indicated "good" usability, however there were some needed changes based on feedback as we move onto higher fidelity.

"Mothers don't need an information overload, keep it simple." - Tutor Participant

The user testing fair was a highlight in this project as it was enjoyable and successful. Personally, it stressed the importance of having a well developed and effective protocol in order to obtain detailed data, as well as build confidence and trust with the participant.

The Results...

75.4

Average SUS (Mother flow)

72.5

Average SUS (Partner flow)

Our SUS scores indicated "good" usability, however there were some needed changes based on feedback as we move onto higher fidelity.

"Mothers don't need an information overload, keep it simple." - Tutor Participant

HIGH-FIDELITY

After consolidating our feedback from user testing into actionable iterations, we worked on high-fidelity prototype, focusing on usability, interactions and visuals. The following are iterations we made with design principles to back them:

Improved affordance

Improved learnability and prevent confusion

Using colours, improved information architecture and overall improved visual design made affordances more obvious, so that users are more aware of what elements are interact-able, and how they should interact with them.

Improved visibility of system status

Increase efficiency, clarity and streamlined form

Our prototype's booking form was a major cause of confusion due to the ambiguity of selected and available dates. This was simplified by reducing down to only the available dates in a carousel form, increasing efficiency and improving presentation of information.

Simplify content and improve information architecture

Prevent information overload

On the home page, we adjusted the text size and reordered the card placement (having the schedule and lesson cards together at the top felt more harmonious). We prioritised what most important on the home page, helping us to reduce unnecessary information and space out the elements. As this screen would be the user's first impression, its crucial we help them ease into the apps features with a clean and simple layout.

Additionally, we completed removed the "meetup summary" feature. It was discovered in user testing that mothers do not need this, as it would feel like "work" to catch up on meetups.

EXPERT TESTING + FINAL ITERATIONS

After making changes to our first high-fidelity prototype, we conducted heuristic testing with 2 experts. They provided us with rigorous and valuable feedback about our prototype’s aesthetics and usability for our final high-fidelity prototype. They tested both user flows against a criteria of Norman's Usability Heuristics, of which we applied a severity rating to indicate changes we should make.

The following are examples of final iterations:

Onboarding wizard

Improves learnability

We implemented an onboarding wizard to introduce the app's layout and pages. Reducing this information to bite-sized steps improves the overall learnability for new users. We also made sure to add user control and error prevention with the back and skip buttons.

Clearer lesson page titles and simplified content

Better match between system and real world, and improved information processing

Experts found the initial page titles confusing due to a mismatch with content. We changed the titles so they aligned with content and that users are more informed of what to expect (in terms of information).

We also simplified content, added more visuals and took advantage of intuitive elements such as carousels. Additionally, we split content across more pages so that they were more digest-able. Overall, this reduces information overload.

Consistency across elements

Improve familiarity and visual aesthetics

To ensure the cohesiveness of our app’s UI, we adjusted the meet-up cards so that they were consistent with the card on the homepage.

Notice how the information architecture is a lot better here! We used more varied text colours to draw attention to whats more important - the location.

final product

BRANDING + DESIGN SYSTEM

What does WEEVE mean?

The name WEEVE embodies three main objectives: to educate parents for the transition to parenthood, empower partners to actively support new mothers, and extend community and health services to new mothers, hence the three e's in the name. It also conveys a metaphor of interwoven-ness, referencing the "knitting" of community and continuous "thread" of care often missing in current postpartum support, that WEEVE seeks to provide.

We ensured that we adhered to text-colour contrast standards (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) for accessibility.

PRESENTING…

FIGMA PROTOTYPE

USE CONTEXT STORYBOARD

CORE FEATURES

Home

The Home page is a dashboard designed to help users quickly find and access core actions without having to navigate through menus.

Account Linking

By intuitively linking accounts, mothers and partners are able gain access to shared information, such as upcoming appointments.

Booking Appointments

Mothers and partners can book appointments based on service type or trusted professional, according to personal needs.

Whenever a mother is occupied or feels overwhelmed by maternal responsibilities, a partner can step in and book an appointment for her.

Mothers and partners can book appointments based on service type or trusted professional, according to personal needs.

Whenever a mother is occupied or feels overwhelmed by maternal responsibilities, a partner can step in and book an appointment for her.

Education Modules

Education modules cover a range of topics relevant to pre-birth and post-birth stages, equipping mothers and partners with the knowledge and confidence they need.

Modules are not limited to only baby-related topics - they also cover crucial information about a mother's physical and mental health.

Education modules cover a range of topics relevant to pre-birth and post-birth stages, equipping mothers and partners with the knowledge and confidence they need.

Modules are not limited to only baby-related topics - they also cover crucial information about a mother's physical and mental health.

Groups

Mother and partners can find and join groups to interact with other families and organise meetups. Through these communities, they can receive ongoing peer support and form meaningful connections.

DEMO VIDEO

LIMITATIONS

Lack of Access to Intended End Users

As this was a face-paced and limited resourced project, we lacked access to mothers and partners. More primary data and testing feedback from our target end users would have been beneficial, as they could provide more rigorous and context-relevant insights.

Lack of Access to Intended End Users

Lack of Access to Rural Families + Those of Lower Social-economic Status

Looking back at our 4th research objective, similarly our limited time and resources made it difficult to connect with this group of people. This also meant that we lacked their insights that could have geared our design decisions towards their needs. If we had the ability to do so, this an important matter to address as mothers in such circumstances face more hardships than most.

Lack of Access to Rural Families + Those of Lower Social-economic Status

Maternal Care Shortage

Thinking about limitations from a broader perspective, we must consider if there are enough maternal care workers willing or available to actively support mothers on WEEVE.

Increasing demand: There is a need for at least 20% new midwifery students to meet demands. (Homer et al., 2024).

Diminishing supply: 1 in 3 current midwives considering leaving the profession (Homer et al., 2024).

Maternal Care Shortage

Thinking about limitations from a broader perspective, we must consider if there are enough maternal care workers willing or available to actively support mothers on WEEVE.

Increasing demand: There is a need for at least 20% new midwifery students to meet demands. (Homer et al., 2024).

Diminishing supply: 1 in 3 current midwives considering leaving the profession (Homer et al., 2024).

WHATS NEXT?

"The Fourth Trimester"

With WEEVE, we could propose an initiative "The Fourth Trimester", or integrate with existing initiatives, to improve postpartum care with maternal health research units in local hospitals. Out app could be trialed as a hand-off once mothers are discharged from hospitals.

"The Fourth Trimester"

Referral Partnerships

Build referral partnerships with other related services like the Perinatal Anxiety & Depression Australia helpline to further extend the reach of mothers with maternal support. These services and organisations can also provide connections with healthcare professionals, providing better options when booking appointments.

Referral Partnerships

Product for Carers

Alongside WEEVE, there is an opportunity to create tools as extensions for the app to be utilised by midwives and maternal health service providers. These tools can target meetup coordination and experience feedback, and give insight into midwife burnout and satisfaction to mutually improve outcomes for both mothers and carers.

Product for Carers

REFERENCES

Thank you for taking the time to read through this case study!

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