NCIT: Childcare with a Ting of Nostalgia + Advocacy
Overview: A website that helps parents, advocates, and policymakers get up-to-date information on pregnancy and early childcare resources and policies.
Problem: The NCIT didn’t have a website or social media, and in today’s society, a website and social media accounts are necessary to communicate information and to get information out quickly.
Solution: We designed a website for desktop and mobile, and social media posts for Instagram and Pinterest to increase engagement and share information.
Timeline
Q1 2023, Q4 2024 - Q1 2025
Programs
Figma Canva Adobe After Effects
Skills
Animation Design Systems Graphic Design Prototyping Research UI/UX Design Social Media
Role
UI/UX Designer + Graphic Designer (Collaborators: Junior Designer, Senior Designer, Creative Lead, Project Managers, Developers)
Industry
Healthcare, Nutrition, Advocacy, Kids
Website
Background
Research and Looking to “Play” to Reach Family Demographic
They needed a website and socials to go with their brand refresh that accounted for how people get content and in today’s society that’s online. NCIT didn’t initially have a website or social media and had just become acquired by The American Heart Association. The site needed to account for computers and mobile layouts, and the socials needed that animated, bright, energetic factor that most children’s content has.
Discover
Design
Test
Launch
Process
Discover
Learning about your users through Play and Research
When I started I didn’t know much about child development and advocacy within this space, so research played a big role in the style and direction. I wanted to understand how their target audiences digest content (websites, social media, television, etc.) and what elements can keep them engaged. Indirect competitive analysis through looking at the branding for grocery store baby food, watching children's animated television, and researching toys was used to strategize a style that could work across desktop and mobile. Creating a website and social posts helped to leverage the way that people current learn about new information.
What We Already Knew?
Demographics - Primary Focus: Moms; Secondary Focus: Families, Policy Makers, Advocates, Monority Communities
Imagery Options - Focused underrepresented families (African American, Asian, Latino, LGBTQIA+, etc.)
Engagement - NCIT needs to grow their community to increase early childhood development advocacy
None to Little Website or Social Presence -Previously NCIT had little to no online presence and felt very medical from their original logo
We used a mixed-method approach:
Primary Research: Primary Research: current in-store products for food and toys
Secondary Research: online research, tv shows, social media, children’s brand-focused websites
Qualitative: informal interviews, feedback
YUMI
Plum
Cerebelly
Results from the Mixed-Method Research Process.
Children’s Content leans towards Bold, Bright, and Energetic - I wanted to understand children's content better, so I did a competitive analysis of children’s brands (toys, shows, etc.). This initially was sparked by the interview Cas Holman did on Netflix’s Abstract to talk about the concept of play and her invention, the Rigamajig.
Social Media & Digital Content Matters MORE - To further understand, I conducted informal interviews with new parents and soon-to-be parents to understand how parents gain information on childcare topics. The answer that popped up a lot was social media.
This concept of “Play” moves through everything created for NCIT.
Examples can be seen in how we chose to combine play (toys) into the website design to produce better engagement and having the toys, food, drinks, etc. do a little animated wobble like how toddlers walk when they take their first steps for the social graphics.
From this research, I was able to validate and confirm these goals:
Engagement: Creating space for families, advocates, and policy makers to find our more information on child development through social media
Easy Navigation: Easier to navigate for the user to find what they’re looking for
Advocacy: Helping people to know more about child development
How might we...
Design
Design Beings About Problems of Its Own
Throughout the research process, the senior designer and I would have short meetings to go over the initial moodboarding and research finds. At this stage, it would have been helpful to create personas to refer back to to keep the users in mind through past, present, and future processes, but another time. With using the research, the senior designer created the initial design for the homepage, which I then used to build out the other pages on the the website and tweak the homepage where needed.
One of such sections being the rattle design on the homepage for the “What Can You Do” section. This section was inspired by the “Play” concept and sketches were needed to understand how the parents, adocates, and policy makers could best use it. This section however didn’t take into account that we may be overcomplicating a section that may only need a simple answer.
Test
Creating New Solutions after User Feedback
Once we evaluated the new experience, we were able to see that the new design didn’t account for product growth, especially the quick growth that could come from child-focused brands. Simultaneously, NCIT grew to over 2500 followers in 2 years on Instagram which further validated that need.
Problem 1: Their partners list was fast-growing, and so the current design made it hard to navigate on the home and internal pages. Also, they wanted a more effective way to display some of the partners on the homepage, but also create a tier system for them.
Problem 2: The events section needed to be separated from the news section since they didn’t have too many events. Instead, they wanted “Events” moved near the top of the page and to showcase more of their latest work.
Problem 3: The “What Can You Do” section is hard for people to use, so we need to find a clearer, more simplified way to navigate it.
Problem 4: They wanted to experiment with different options for the hero/main image or video when you come to the site.
Launch
Simplifying Your Answers is Sometimes the Answer to User Goals
Through out this process we tried to keep it fun and simple. Overcomplicating the design only pushes away the target demographics: families, advocates, and policymakers. I also learned that in working with an ongoing client, you’re never really done.
Solution 1: Create a moving carousel of the steering committee members’ logos and have an additional section that explains the membership and leads to the full list of members.
Solution 2: Design a Latest Work section of 3 boxes that link to toolkits, events, and petition forms.
Solution 3: Changing the rattle to a button section with clear labels and a single instruction line to click the icons for the supporter type.
Solution 4: I worked on a few options, and they ultimately went with a shorter image for the homepage, so the top image isn’t covering so much of the screen.