Meet Project Jr.
We designed a digital service app to help women confidently navigate the typically fragmented fertility process.
THE PROBLEM
More women than ever are undergoing fertility treatment to bring life into the world as a single parent. Yet the process is designed almost exclusively for couples.
Smart's Design Director, Stephanie, recently lived this experience, and thanks to IUI (a fertility treatment better known as artificial insemination) is bringing her first child into the world. Throughout her journey, she saw many gaps and opportunity areas and became determined to figure out what an inclusive fertility service could look like.
Through learning from her personal journey which she thoroughly documented, we developed an internal project to answer: How might we re-envision the future of fertility to be more accessible and inclusive?
THE TEAM
Creative Director
Interaction Designer
Visual Designer (myself)
Strategist
Designed at Smart Design.
A personalized and inclusive solution
Jr. is contextual and personalized to each woman’s mind-set, worries, level of engagement, and needs–whether you’re at the “thinking about it” stage, exploring fertility options as a potential pathway, or actively trying to get pregnant using assisted treatments.
Featured on Fastco.com
Stephanie’s story and our design concepts for the Jr. app were featured in a three-part series on Fastco.com.
Our efforts demonstrated how much room the fertility industry has for improvement. Our realistic and well thought out concepts have helped companies visualize how they can improve their existing services to be more inclusive. The project has lead to many business development conversations and inquiries from companies interested in working with us to bring our vision to life.
I created the UI system and helped define key app features based on pain points in Stephanie's journey.
MY RESPONSIBILITIES
My responsibilities included defining the key hero moments that could be visualized as features, working with the interaction designers to bring the features to life, designing the UI system and applying it to the hero flows, animating the flows in Principle and After Effects, creating illustrations to show the connected services and managing the project timeline for the design portion of the project.
Developing a visual system that makes her feel confident and comfortable
This was an interesting project because Stephanie was both the Creative Director and user who we were designing for. It was fun collaborating directly with her to create a look and feel for the UI that felt modern and inclusive so she could feel at ease, confident and most importantly normal as she went through this process.
For example, in speaking with Stephanie I learned that we'd need to be mindful about text in the interface being inclusive for single women, such as avoiding the use of “you and your partner”.
Mood Indicator
The service keeps your network in-the-know, including the nuances of your mood (e.g., when you’re disappointed due to a negative result on a pregnancy test). Your village understands exactly when expressions of empathy or joy are appropriate.
Your Village
Each person’s village is unique to them, with a diverse set of roles depending on their specific needs–from friends who are experts with lived experiences to those who fill gaps such as in-person help, practical advice, or emotional support.
Key Learnings
BALANCING INTERNAL PROJECTS
Because this was an internal initiative, we didn’t have a specific dedicated team working full time on the project. With resources coming and going, Stephanie and I were often carrying the torch in terms of knowledge transfer. This was good exposure to what’s required in terms of managing multiple resources and tracks of work to drive the project to completion.
DIVING INTO ANIMATIONS
Often times I work with motion designer’s on projects to bring transitions and interactions to life. Since we didn’t have a fully dedicated team, I had the opportunity to jump in and create the animations in Principle and After Effects myself.
COLLABORATING REMOTELY
One interaction designer was working remotely out of our London office and the other was freelancing from home. It challenged us to make sure we were continuously in sync, clearly communicating the project goals and feedback so that everyone could be productive and design effective solutions.
Learn more about Stephanie's story on Fastco.com.
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