April 5, 2023

Child Care LOCATOR

ROLE
Product designer
CLIENT
OK Child Care Services
DURATION
03 months
Project overview
I redesigned a federally regulated child care locator tool for Oklahoma's parents.

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About the project

As part of Oklahoma Human Services push for digital modernization, the Child Care Services team knew they had to act quickly to help Oklahoma families find adequate child care.

The pandemic had worsened child care deserts. I performed in-depth interviews with parents to build empathy and understand the situation. One story in particular stands out to me.

Building empathy

"Patricia" lives in Oklahoma City and has two sons in daycare. Unfortunately, due to lack of availability they have to attend two different daycares that are across town from each other. Because of this, her route was a grueling 1.5 hours each morning and evening.

This story got my full buy-in on this project. I had to help parents like "Patricia" find daycares that fit their schedules and commute.

Locator tool before the redesign
original version of the child care locator before the redesign
Outdated UI = high bounce rate
Overwhelming amount of questions
Problematic information hierarchy
Poor UX writing: acronyms + jargon
The solution

Putting myself in my users' shoes, I assessed the current tool to see how it could meet parents' needs. I redesigned the tool to be a search-based, visually calming resource that aligned with how modern users interact with the web. Play with the design prototype below.

Redesign prototype
Route search

I added a route search feature to help parents like "Patricia". Now a user can enter their starting and ending location for their morning commute and the tool will show child care centers along that route.

route concept feature using google maps example
Initial route search concept using a Figma overlay on google maps
lo-fi route concept wireframe
lo-fi wireframe of the route search feature
Results

I performed user testing to compare the new design with the old tool. User confidence was restored and ease of use was noted by each participant. Read more about this user testing in this report.

Parents like "Patricia" now have the resources to improve their commute and their children's learning and growth. The redesign made a big splash, even catching a segment on the news (below).

News coverage of the child care locator redesign launch

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