User Research
Explored where symptom tracking for pregnancy fell short today, and looked at how competing apps handled it.
Symptoms Tracking for Pregnant Women
Responsive mobile app design for Trellis Health
The goal
A reliable way to log and review symptoms through pregnancy
Women go through a lot of changes during pregnancy — from normal headaches to fluctuations in mood to severe health conditions. Women have predominantly used symptom trackers for their menstruation cycles and pregnancies, but when it comes to tracking symptoms specifically for pregnancy, there’s a need to create a reliable way to not only log them, but also review the data collected to track one’s health. This might help avoid any unforeseen issues during and after the pregnancy.
My role and ownership
An iterative design process, from research through evaluation
We followed the following design process, and it was iterative in nature.
Conceptual Design
Defined the requirements and mapped out user scenarios and flows for logging and reviewing symptoms.
Interaction Design
Sketched early ideas, built a mood board for the visual direction, and moved into high-fidelity prototyping.
Evaluation
Ran A/B tests on two design directions and tested usability with real users.
Research
Which symptoms actually matter, and how other apps handle them
Domain of inquiry
For pregnant women, symptoms range at different levels. There are common symptoms, and some that occur at certain times. Some symptoms might be associated with each other, while others might occur together for various reasons. We targeted symptoms that are common, associated, and that need monitoring — symptoms that might be severe and lead to serious health conditions or complications in pregnancy.
Competitor analysis
Competitor analysis was performed to learn about the symptoms feature available in the market, for both menstruation-cycle tracking and pregnancy-tracking apps. We studied popular apps and the symptoms feature in each one, and made a note of the factors that helped them stand out, or the factors that worked well for people to use the app over a longer duration.
User journey map
Common observations about symptoms:
- Most apps have quick log-and-save actions for symptoms.
- Analysis of the symptoms was rarely found.
- Reminders are common when logging symptoms.
Key insights
Key Findings
- People are less, or not, motivated to track symptoms.
- Some symptoms may lead to others.
- Tracking symptoms on a daily basis would help people understand their health more clearly.
- Many apps use simple icons or one-tap interactions to save symptoms.
Process
From requirements to a tested, high-fidelity design
Sprint 1: Conceptual Design
Requirement gathering
User stories were created to define the scope of the feature’s functionality. The following requirements were finalized after multiple discussions and brainstorming sessions:
- Users should be able to quickly log symptoms.
- Users should be able to log a symptom and add details.
- Users should be able to look at the logged symptoms for the current week.
Sprint 2: Interaction Design
Mood board
Inspired by the ideas, I started creating sketches, finalized the lo-fi sketches with the team, and then started working on hi-fi design screens in Figma.
A/B testing: chips view vs. list view
After iterating on the design for logging symptoms, I tried creating simple views that would accommodate overlapping symptoms and rule out the cons of the earlier design.
Prototyping
Logging symptoms with the list-view design:
Adding details for a logged symptom, and exploring all logged symptoms:
Evaluation
Testing chips view against list view with real users
With the two designs created, I planned a usability test. The purpose was to find out how women would use the symptoms feature, and to test between the chips view and list view.
I recruited participants who were pregnant or planning to get pregnant. We interviewed all 4 participants in 2 days — a 30-minute test session with 3 tasks, held online over Zoom.
Major findings
3/4
participants found the quick-save approach easy to use and helpful.
List View
was the winning design in A/B testing.
Impact
85% user satisfaction, and faster logging for the rest
85%
Satisfaction rate (ease of use)
88%
of users found logging symptoms less time-consuming
Learnings
Shipping taught me as much as designing did
- In the overall project work, I learned how an app is submitted to the App Store and tested — the entire process, and the patience required while things get fixed and tested again.
- I explored the scope and need for responsive design on iOS devices (iPad designs were also created for the app, though not shown in this case study).