Mom and Family
Looking for new ways to connect to moms
PROJECT BACKGROUND
The Mom and Family Group at Disney was at a turning point and looking for new ways to connect to moms. Since much of their previous research was focused on marketing, I pushed for more qualitative research that could help the team empathize with moms at a variety of life stages to find any unmet needs suitable for the Disney brand.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
My research focused on the following:
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Current habits and solutions: Discover what tools, digital or otherwise, moms are using to help them. Understand what is working well for them and their pain points
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Possible new product ideas: How might we create products for moms as they move through different stages of motherhood?
MY ROLE
UX Researcher on the design team conducting research to help inform product decisions
USER INTERVIEWS
Method
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User interviews
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Conducted in users' home
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60 min
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Participants
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Women who are pregnant
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Mom of a newborn
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Mom of a toddler
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Mom of a pre-schooler
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Mom of a school-age child
All of which:
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Work part-time or full-time
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Live in a suburban area
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College-educated
EMPATHY MAPS​
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After observing and listening to women from each stage of motherhood, I felt that I started to understand what was on their mind, what they were doing and their pain points. The first step in analyzing what I learned was to synthesize the interviews and create an empathy map. After all, my goal was to engage the team and get their heads wrapped around being a mother. These break down each stage into what they are saying, thinking, doing and feeling.
AFFINITY DIAGRAM​
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In addition to empathizing with moms, I needed to synthesize everything I heard in the interviews. I used the Rose, Thorn, Bud method to help understand what was working for moms and what wasn't. I like this method because it helps you see areas of need at a glance as well as areas that might be ripe for the picking in terms of ideas having potential.
NOW, LET'S TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT...
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After organizing all the data by life-stage, I wanted to see if there were patterns I could see when I organized the data by topic to see which areas had a big need and/or had some potential for product ideas. I looked for groups mostly with blue (commented on negatively) and green (has potential to be a positive thing)
I found that there were needs across many topics.
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Moms want to expose their kids to a lot of experiences
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Moms of younger kids want to find local things to do with their kids and other kids their age
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Moms of School-Age kids need help finding learning resources i.e. like piano teachers and camp/daycare options during the summer
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Moms want to be part of a community of other parents
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Moms need help finding a local community of parents with similar aged children
Moms want to buy the best products for their babies
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New moms need help deciding what they need to buy for their new babies
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Moms expect information to be easy to find
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When new issues arise with your child, it's overwhelming. Moms would love the information about their situation to come to them
FINDING ALIGNMENT WITH BUSINESS
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There were clearly too many topics to make sense of here. So, I looked at the broad categories that had many topics with needs in them to see how these categories map to the overall lifespan of motherhood. After all, the main goal here is to promote longer user engagement.
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Some categories, like buying products, are relevant for a short period. Others, like being part of a parent community or exposing your kids to lots of experiences span most of the stages.
KEY INSIGHTS
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After taking a close look at the areas of need above as well as considering those topics that would serve mom throughout all the stages of motherhood to encourage user retention, the following are my key insights.
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Community is vital to moms
Having a community of people who are in the same stage of motherhood as you are is important because it carries you through all sorts of situations that life throws you. Your community is where you feel comfortable asking questions and getting advice. You'll hear about successes and challenges with daycare and education and you can even swap recipes and cooking tips.
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Finding things to do with kids is exhausting
This seems to be one of the areas that have the most opportunity. The needs revolve around finding free local activities to do with your toddler to camps for keeping kids busy during the summer.
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RECOMMENDATION
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Focusing on finding local things will be the most beneficial to moms through all stages of motherhood as well as promote an engaged user base.
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The product/s should:
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Match moms with other moms in her local community
This could function like a dating app for moms where they can compare the age of kids, areas of interest, etc.
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Be the Yelp for daycare
Knowing that you are seeing all the available options in your area along with ratings and reviews of other parents is invaluable to a tired, busy mom. Daycare can span from nannies to after-school programs for school-age kids. And for daycare during summers, a comprehensive list of local camps would be needed.
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Enable moms to get out and experience the world
As a mom of a baby or toddler, going out can be a hassle. Bringing ideas for quick outings with the small ones to a mom can be a great relief. Also having the ability to invite other moms easily would encourage them to become part of the local parent community.