Space Explorer: connecting parents

A mobile app that helps parents
find a broader community network in urban spaces

The first collaborative project in my Masters program challenged my team to identify an urban problem space, and ideate a design solution.

Ideation Studio Project

3 months
Problem setting & design

My role

UX Design
High-fidelity prototyping

Team

Will Oberleitner
Mahvish Irfan

	Problem setting
01	Caregivers raising children in urban areas need family-friendly resources and support networks

Social connections are critical for navigating city life, adapting to new stages of child development, and maintaining personal health and stability.

But social resources are often limited to known friends and family.

02	Seattle is now the fastest growing big city in the country, with the second-lowest number of households with children

Programs exist to support Seattle parents, but often only serve to strengthen existing social connections.

Opportunity ⟩

Help Seattle families expand their networks for resources and social connection

Spaces and places

My team realized that businesses could become a nexus for social connection between different caregivers.

Family friendly spaces are important for urban parents on-the-go. But once together in the spaces, we learned that caregivers who didn't know each other seldom spoke with each other.

We traveled to family friendly businesses to test paper prototypes with caregivers.

In my early prototype caregivers with a mobile app enter a participating business, then make their avatar visible if they want to connect with new people.

Personal information is concealed and revealed at different moments in the exchange.

Map location helps people connect with each other.