Xinkaishi
Xinkaishi, which literally means “begin from the heart”, This is a story how we made an app for expectant Chinese mothers.
To comply with my confidentiality agreement I have omitted and appropriated confidential information. These designs are a reinterpretation of the original.
The Problem
XinKaishi addresses anxieties expectant Chinese parents face as they bridge between traditional and modern child rearing practices. Whilst the one child policy has eased, access to information during pregnancy hasn't improved. Over 18million childbirths are expected in 2016.
Target Users
Xinkaishi is specifically designed to meet the needs of expecting Chinese pregnant women (23-40 yrs old) with gestation aged 20-42 weeks and their family
My Role
I was part of the design team in Boston Consulting Group’s digital venture from Sep 2015 to Sep 2016. I was responsible for the user research, usability testing, user interaction and translate concepts into features that address customer behaviours and motivations.
Research & Interview
I followed a user centered innovation approach to identify unmet consumer needs and learned that raising an unborn child is the biggest priority for Chinese families. In this process, I uncovered that pregnant women in China share a number of challenges that are not sufficiently met by healthcare providers
What is user's concerns ?
1) Concerns for their baby's health and development
2) Desires to stay connected and not feel alone
3) Inconvenience associate with getting medical attention
4) Finding reliable and trustworthy information
And we observed that pregnant women in China have very few opportunities to visit an ObGyn to listen to their baby’s heartbeat, and are not able to bring their husbands or other family members with them into the room for when the ultrasound is being conducted
As a result of our findings, we created the Xinkaishi platform and device that creates a stronger bond by enabling mothers to listen to their baby's heartbeat. It reduces anxiety which imposes stress on the unborn fetus, builds confidence for new moms, replaces active in-home ultrasound Doppler devices and offers a smarter, safer, more holistic way to enjoy pregnancy.
Information Architecture
Prototyping
We designed 3 parts of the mobile app prototyping. Dashboard, Nutrition and Heartbeat.
Usability Testing
We evolved the design over 100 times through rapid usability testing – optimizing the form factor, color, and enclosure for ergonomic, aesthetic, and scientific benefit.
The usability testing for heartbeat device is only for the women with gestation aged 20-42 weeks.Because fetal heartbeat signals with consistent detection happening following week 20.
I made our usability testing to be 2 parts. The 1st part focused on the usability testing for the mobile app. The second part focused on the usability for the heartbeat device.
User's Task
User's task was designed to find problems for the interaction with the heartbeat device.The testing location depended on the participants' convenience.
First Challenge
68% user cannot detect the heartbeat in 2 mins.
User said it is hard to detect the heartbeat by our device. From a deep interview with a couple users. We figured out there are a couple reasons.
After discussed with our product team. We provide a belt to our user to fix the heartbeat device and make user hand free. It could not only solve the problem that our device need a little bit pressure but also help user to use our product in any
place.
We asked our user
1. Download and register in the Xinkaishi App
2. Go to the heartbeat page
3. Connect the heartbeat device to record the heartbeat
4. Share the baby's heartbeat to social mediaIt
Second Challenge
55% user cannot understand how to use the heartbeat device.
But most user think it’s very complex to understand how to use our product. They need more detail instruction for the heartbeat device.
So We made a 2 mins video to teach our user how to use our device to instead of the instructions in the app. Most users thought the video tutorial is helpful for them to understand how to use the heartbeat device.
How to improve the rate to track the heartbeat?
I observed user paused and played a few times to learn how to use our device. I watched the interview video for a couple times and I found user paused in those page.
So I made 6 pages to display how to use our heartbeat device step by step for detecting heartbeat . User could slide to see the next step instruction.
Result
In the beginning of the usability testing, only half of our users could figure out how to finish the task. After we improved our app user flow and added the belt for the heartbeat device. 81% user could follow the instruction to record the baby's heartbeat and share in social media successfully.
More Testing On Cross Device
Our app will work on both the iPhone iPad and Android device. As such, we need to test out the app on different devices.
Finial Design
Loosening of the one-child policy in China, global concerns regarding doppler safety, and limited access to health specialists created the opportunity for technology to be used to help women safely enjoy and celebrate pregnancy. Xinkaishi solves these challenges, harnessing innovation to deepen emotional bonds between parents and child.
Our team
The Xinkaishi device and app were designed and developed in Mountain view,California through the ideation and incubation phases. There are designers, iOS developers, Android developers, backend developers,full stack developers, product managers, data scientists and QA engineer in our team. Below are some highlights from our team, including designers and developers who created the original product.
