How might we close the gap in maternal mental health care and spread awareness to help struggling mothers get the care they need?
Timeline- 2 months
My Role- Product Designer
Tools- Wix, Figma, Miro
Impact- 87% New Users
Project Background
Conscious Moms was founded by a mother of 3 who recognized the changes experienced physically, mentally, socially, and emotionally after having a child. They aim to spread awareness about mental health and cultivate a community of support for struggling mothers.
They have an unfinished website that needs a clear image and tone that would encourage people to join their cause.
The Problem
1 in 5 mothers are affected by maternal mental health disorders
Only 15% receive treatment
Mothers of color suffer at double the rates of white mothers
Conscious Moms needs to spread awareness about maternal mental health, and persuade more people to join their cause and donate to their organization.
The Solution
The Solution
Understanding the Cause
To start off the research phase I spoke with the Conscious Mom's founders and they provided me with a lot of background info and materials to educate me more on the topic of maternal mental health. Some of the most substantial things I learned about maternal mental health were:
The children of mothers suffering from mental health disorders can be born with an array of problems such as cognitive, behavioral, and social delays.
Women in their childbearing years account for the highest group with depression in the U.S.
Mothers suffering from poor mental health are more likely to experience physical, emotional, or sexual abuse and turn to substance abuse to cope with the pain
A new website with an informative landing page that evokes emotion
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Images that show a strong sense of women supporting each other
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Maternal mental health statistics to quickly educate users about the cause
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Cleaner sitemap and CTA's to encourage people to donate
Hearing more perspectives
I needed to hear more perspectives on this issue so I could get a better understanding of what it's like for these struggling mothers. Since conscious moms is a new non profit, they did not have an arsenal of people for me to speak with so I decided to turn to Reddit.
I introduced myself in the subreddit for women and was very transparent about my my intentions for gathering this info and what I was trying to achieve. I got a conversation going about maternal mental health to find out what are deeper reasons mothers don't prioritize their mental health.
Identifying the Persona
With all the information I had gathered up to this point, I created two personas to better understand the needs and frustrations these mothers experience.
Isabelle- The Young Struggling Mother
Patricia- The Do-Gooder
Journey Map
I made a journey map to better understand the journey and needs a user experiences when they come to the site. The main goal of the website was to educate people and get them to donate their time and money .
The site needed to make people feel for the cause and genuinely want to help, it couldn't just be telling users to cough up their money. This helped me uncover user expectations and processes, and find what opportunities and touchpoints would meet their needs.
Sketches
Now that I felt I had gathered enough information to move forward in the design process, I started to brain storm ideas for the landing page.
I kept everything I had learned in mind when creating my sketches and used a mixture of elements from all sketches to pick a direction to go forward in.
Lo-Fi Wireframes
My lo-fi wireframes serve as my first iteration of the site. I used elements from all my sketches to find a style that felt right to me.
Landing Page
Picture of the founders with excerpt about them and what they do. Users can click on the CTA to learn more
Slideshow of Maternal Mental Health Statistics to let people learn about the cause in bite sized pieces
This section lets people know upfront how Conscious Moms takes action to provide help
Upcoming events here to let people know whats coming up and allow them to RSVP
Style Guide
The original Conscious Moms website was lacking personality and emotion.
One font was used throughout the whole site and I found it interesting how adding a font with more personality could change the whole tone of the website.
Once I added a pop of color and images that showed a stronger message I could see the vision start to come together.
A New Direction for The Conscious Mom’s Website
Before
After
Original about section had hard to read text over a stock photo of random women. I thought it was important to add pictures of the women that founded the non profit and added a CTA button to learn more.
Original hero image didn't evoke any emotion or show a message of women supporting each other.
Original nav bar and logo were awkwardly placed. I got rid of the unreadable small text in the logo and made the tree the focal point. Then I cleaned up the nav bar and brought it up and over.
I added more description so users can understand what they do at a glance and a CTA to learn more.
I changed out the random stock photos and went for icons that are commonly used for charity.
Analytics
After I came onto the project, the amount of traffic to the site from July to August almost doubled, 87% of users being new visitors.
The Conscious Moms team has already been getting inquiries from people who want to volunteer with them and wanting to attend their events!
Client Quote from Conscious Moms Founder Artie Varnado:
"Chelsea has brought our vision to life and exceeded all our expectations!"
Takeaways
It was truly a pleasure to work on this website for the Conscious Moms team. This is a cause I feel strongly about and I was happy to donate my time to helping women. I learned so much about designing in the nonprofit sector and the different vein of empathy I needed to tap into.
Designing for a nonprofit isn't just about helping a client make money, it's about helping them make a real change in the world, and i feel very fulfilled to have played a small part in that.
I gained great experience working with clients and listening to their ideas while still providing my own suggestions to build a product we are both happy with. There were certainly times when their suggestions/ideas were not ones I would have chosen, and I gained experience knowing which battle to pick and when to just give the client what they want.
Next Steps
-Create a standalone landing page for the upcoming Conscious Moms awareness event
- Do more user testing to see how we can improve