Tracking baby’s
health and growth

Overview

HaloBeba is a support center for early child care run by health institutions and UNICEF in Serbia. They are a trusted advisor to parents across the country. For over 15 years, their team of doctors and nurses has been answering parents' questions through a 24/7 call center.

HaloBeba wanted to extend support to parents by providing them with everyday tools and resources. The solution was a mobile app with curated articles and tools for tracking baby's growth and health.

From concepts to details

I joined the project when low-fidelity wireframes were ready to evolve into a more refined design. Designing clear information architecture and user flows helped make conceptual ideas tangible.

We envisioned personas in guerilla fashion, based on friends and family who were new parents. This helped keep users front of mind.

Sketching on the whiteboard helps map and reshuffle the content as needed

A user flow helps us identify the actions and paths people can take in the app

Managing constraints

In 1- to 2-week sprints, I worked on high-fidelity prototypes to validate designs with the client's domain experts. A polished interface helped stakeholders share actionable feedback.

With limited capacity to test with users, the product lead and I created usability testing guidelines and in-app survey templates so the client can gather feedback in the future.

Crafting UI Patterns

The app was to be launched on both iOS and Android. With resource constraints, I worked on only one version of the UI, keeping the interface simple so it can be easily adapted to different platforms.

Components from a UI kit helped me create UI patterns quickly.

As the UI evolved, I created a pattern library to keep the user experience consistent and make developers' work easier.

Hand-off and final touches

Preparing the hand-off to developers, I documented the work with prototypes, flowcharts, and feature descriptions.

Flowchart showing all elements on a screen and their interaction

After the project was over, I kept polishing the design as a side project. The process (including translating content to English) was a fun exercise. The designs you're seeing here are my personal work.

Client’s website was soon overhauled, and in my personal project, I tried to adapt the app's visual language to the new website.

Diversity & inclusion: it's a learning journey

The baby journal is a part of the app where parents can track baby's growth. Initially, our team designed 'red flag' states which show up when baby’s data diverges from average values. However, feedback from domain experts reminded us that each baby's growth is unique, and that this pattern may cause anxiety. It seems obvious in hindsight, but it just shows how easy it is to get wrapped up in our bubble and how essential is to test designs. In the next iteration, the goal was to gently signal if the data goes significantly far from average.

In the final design, I went a step further, not evaluating the pace of growth at all. Instead, I focused on whether the data for a particular period was missing or up to date, which seemed more useful.

Outcomes

Launched in 2020, the app supported parents through the pandemic with accessible tools and resources. And after years of being on the front lines of parents' urgent concerns, HaloBeba ventured into providing preventative support.

Lessons learned

This project was a good learning experience in managing constraints around user testing. Nothing beats testing directly with users. As a second best, feedback from domain experts was a valuable proxy, while in-app polls and testing guidelines equipped the client with testing resources for the future.

Doing the final design on my own was a way to apply what I learned in Learn UI Design—really helpful in developing my craft.