Tuto
Simplifying Social Connections for Parents
Introduction
The problem to be solved:
Parents often struggle to socialize and plan activities for their children due to busy schedules and the challenge of connecting with others who don’t have kids.
This leads to stress and isolation, making it difficult to create fun and meaningful experiences for their families.
The Solution :
Tuto is a mobile app designed to simplify the process of planning and coordinating family activities.
By making it easier for parents to connect and organize playdates, Tuto helps families enjoy spontaneous, stress-free social interactions, enriching both their own and their children’s lives.
Roles and Project Dynamics
- My Roles (got to wear many hats) :
User Research
Ideation and Strategy
UX and UI Design
Usability Testing
Prototyping
Branding and Illustration - Team: Collaborated with 3 amazing students from Hyper Island
- Time: Completed over an eight-week period in early 2024
- Deliverables: User research report, UI kit/Design System, high-fidelity prototype
Ideation and Research
Understanding the Challenge
We dove into data to understand why many parents struggle to socialize. We read articles about the challenges young parents face, such as feelings of loneliness and social isolation.
Conducting Interviews
To gather firsthand insights, we interviewed around five young parents. These conversations helped us understand their pain points and daily struggles better.
Creating Personas
Using our research, we created six detailed personas representing different user needs and behaviors. This helped us tailor our design to address specific challenges faced by young parents.
The Problem
Our research highlighted several key pain points:
- Hard to plan as things often go unexpectedly with kids
- No time to text much
- Difficult to connect with adults who are not in the same situation
- Feeling lonely often and needing to talk with other adults
- Difficult to find playdates that suit their children’s needs
Based on these insights,we formulated a guiding “How might we” question to drive our design process.
Design phase
Ideation
In our ideation phase, we focused on creating an easy-to-use app with minimal friction for busy parents.
This involved distinct colors for each section and clear, easy-to-navigate buttons.
We envisioned soft, pastel colors for a welcoming theme.
After brainstorming various names, we chose “Tuto” because it means “everything” in Italian and sounds playful and childlike.
UI Design
- Copy: We used friendly, playful language to encourage socializing.
- Typography: We chose Jua for a playful touch and Inter for clarity.
- Colors and Shapes: We used four pastel colors, white backgrounds, and rounded shapes to create a family-friendly yet clean look.
- Logo: We brainstormed several ideas and chose a waving hand, symbolizing friendliness and connection.
UX Design
We began with a paper prototype, focusing on ease of use for busy parents.
The key questions included:
- How can we make the app as easy to use as possible?
- How can users easily add new contacts?
- How can users meet new parents while maintaining privacy?
Paper protoype
1st Prototype
User Testing & Feedback
User Testing Process
We tested the app with about 20 students at Hyper Island to ensure easy navigation. Key areas included:
- Onboarding
- Playdate journeys
- Friend list management
- Event planning,
- Communication and safety
Professional Feedback
An inspiring industry leader emphasized reducing stress and making connections easy.
They also advised refining key features for ease of use, adding an event icon for better navigation, and distinguishing between open and closed events.
Key Insights
The testing showed the need to reduce stress and simplify connections, highlighting the value of a closed community with phone number friend requests.
We focused on fun, accommodating features, friendly UX writing, and privacy options for events.
Final Prototype
The final prototype of Tuto focuses on simplicity and ease of use, ensuring busy parents can quickly connect with friends and organize playdates with minimal effort. The standout feature is the large “Let’s Play” button for quick, hassle-free meetups.
Key Insights And Learnings
- Learned extensive user research techniques
- Conducted effective user testing and gathered valuable feedback
- Gained experience in conducting and analyzing interviews
- Applied user feedback to iteratively improve the app
- Enhanced UI design skills and applied visuals fitting the app’s tone
- Developed skills in creating personas and understanding target audience needs
- Improved ability to design for ease of use and user satisfaction
- Focused on security and privacy features to build user trust
Next steps
The next steps involve bringing Tuto to life, developing the app, and launching it to see how real users interact with it.
By turning our prototype into a functional app, we can gather real-world feedback and continue to refine and improve the user experience based on actual usage and insights.
This will allow us to truly understand the impact and effectiveness of Tuto in helping parents connect and socialize effortlessly.