THE BIRTH STORY
A micro-app proposal helping parents navigate the chaos of labor and delivery
What We Learned
Childbirth moves quickly, leaving parents little time to record important medical details or emotional moments. Our client's research showed that parents want a complete record of their birth, but in-the-moment documentation must be quick and effortless.
What We Created
Made in collaboration with Eindra Lin, the Birth Story is a micro-app proposal that helps parents capture their childbirth journey through a timeline of moments, medical details, and reflections.
PROBLEM SPACE
Intense emotion and medical urgency make it hard for parents to capture key details in real time
Our clients’ research showed that parents often struggle to remember and share their birth story. Without a simple and supportive system, key memories and context are often lost.
With this, we asked:
How might we support memory and reflection without overwhelming parents in the moment?
SOLUTION HIGHLIGHTS
A simplified, emotionally sensitive experience that adapts to the user's need in the moment
Parents can add a journal, moment, or medical entry fast and easy right on a chronological timeline. They can freely add thoughts and feelings on the back of cards whenever they are ready.
Parents are provided helpful suggestions to simplify recording medical details, and they can visualize their story, sharing it through a printable export.
PROTOTYPING AND EVALUATIVE RESEARCH
Testing revealed that even well-intentioned features can overwhelm users in moments of vulnerability
Our early wireframes, informed by our client's generative research, consisted of a timeline with journal entries, medical details, and quick “moments” for capturing memories.
Feedback from two new mothers showed the experience felt too demanding during labor, highlighting the need for a simpler, more intuitive, and motivating design.
FINAL DESIGN
Design that balances empathy with measurable impact
The final design focuses on simple, intuitive interactions that make it easier for parents to capture their story without added stress. If developed further, I would evaluate impact through measures like ease of use, engagement, and completeness of birth stories, and collaborate closely with developers to ensure accessible, lightweight interactions, smooth data entry, and secure storage of sensitive information.
Interact with The Birth Story micro-app below:
Reflections
The Birth Story project pushed me to design for real-life complexity. It challenged me to think not just about what users need, but when and how they’re able to engage.
With my background in biology, psychology, and healthcare, I came to understand the content. This project allowed me to simplify without losing meaning and to create tools that meet people where they are, not where we expect them to be.
This project was completed as part of an Interaction Design Studio course at Carnegie Mellon University, designed to conceptually fit within Myana, a postpartum support app developed by Dezudio. While we received client feedback throughout the process, the work was not done professionally or in direct collaboration with Dezudio. Special thanks to Ashley Deal; Raelynn O’Leary; Sarah Burns, MSW, LSW; Tamar Krishnamurti, PhD.