Birch baby needed an app to target parents desiring a mobile experience for shopping. The company was also launching it's first ever bamboo diaper and wanted to market a subscription with the ability for home delivery.
Role
In total, a team project but personal contribution involving market research, competitive analysis, concept ideation, testing, and high visual fidelity prototype.
Understanding parents
The founder of Birch Baby gave us his target demographic and our team set to work recruiting for parents that fit his ideal market. We sought out families that fit our age range and common shopping habits. A interview guide was designed to uncover lifestyle, product choices, consumer behavior, and brand awareness. Individual interviews were split among the team. After interviews were conducted our team created personas based on discovered insights.
Our Interviews
Using our interview guide we spoke with 4 parent couples ranging from new parents to 2nd time parents with their third baby on the way. Topics ranged from how parents shopped for baby products to what factored into their buying decisions for diapers and wipes.
Insights
Parents relied heavily on the advice of other parents
New parents often struggled to know what size diaper to buy their baby.
Babies getting sick, or switching to solid foods can easily exhaust a new pack of diapers
Diapers and wipes were the two most commonly paired items at purchase.
Parents liked the idea of subscription but worried it wouldn't fit their schedule.
Personas
Taking insights and learnings from the interviewed parents, two personas were created. We felt there there were two different user groups to reference and wanted to make sure they were represented in future design choices.
Wireframe and testing
Using paper sketches, our team took fast ideations and transformed them into paper prototypes using the Marvel Pop app to get to testing as fast as possible.
We tested two flows: adding a product to a diaper box subscription and editing an existing subscription.
Prototype testing
We ran prototype tests with all users who participated in our original user interviews. In-person testing was conducted with mobile phone running Marvel Pop app, remote tests were conducted using an Invision prototype and Zoom.
Two tasks were given and feedback was collected. "Think aloud" exercises were conducted to better understand user behavior and motivations.
Feedback
Include recommendation of diaper size or other product related information
Keep the suggested products page, but make sure items don’t ship at different times
Make additional items free or trial size first
Keep the Cart Page clear, but combine steps into one screen if possible
Make it clear the Home Screen is the Home Screen
Ensure the ability to easily modify sizes and shipping times
Provide arrival date vs shipment date
Always allow ability to edit subscription easily
Allow users to to not just skip deliveries, but also expedite and postpone shipment as needed
Birch Baby Home screen
Parents wanted quick access to check what delivery was coming next and ability to skip an order or revise it.
Delivery time was shown instead of scheduled shipment. This was easier to understand and was more intuitive.
Through our research, we found parents would buy diapers last minute in emergency situations or in times of urgent need.
Rather than try to change this behavior, we opted to include an option to skip next shipment or revise if parents had extra on hand.
Diaper size recommendation
New parents admitted struggling to know what size diaper would fit their baby. This caused unnecessary stress and anxiety that Birch Baby could offload for its customers. We tested size recommendation driven by either baby age and/or weight. Parents loved the idea and our team pushed the concept into design.
Building a box
Since diapers and wipes were the most commonly purchased items for parents we decided to make that our subscription. Parents could choose diapers, select delivery frequency, and then try out a new product if they desired.
Due to a high preference in parents deferring to recommendations of other parents we felt there was an opportunity to show items commonly purchased by other Birch shoppers. This helped provide social proof for products that parents may be unsure about or could end up loving themselves.
Emphasis was placed on a simplified experience to focus on product and call to action so busy parents could speed through checkout.
