DaycareBuddy

Problem Space 

Problem Statement  

How might we streamline the process of finding suitable daycare services, making it more accessible, convenient, efficient, and reliable for parents in order to alleviate stress and support a healthy work-life balance?

Problem Background  

The process of finding a suitable daycare service in Switzerland often takes on average 70 hours from parents and they often face numerous challenges when searching for suitable daycare services. 

They heavily rely on recommendations from friends & families. However, at the current time there is no streamlined process to gather these recommendations in a convenient and reliable manner.
Gathering these recommendations can be time-consuming and unreliable without a streamlined process. The negative outcomes of not having a solution like DaycareBuddy include increased stress levels and potential for suboptimal care for their children. It takes  a lot of time because the current process involves contacting numerous daycare providers, filling out multiple applications, and waiting for responses - all of which can be very time-consuming and stressful.

Research Insights

User Pain Points

After defining the target persona in detail in-depth interviews and surveys have been conducted.

Supporting Data

Our conducted research showed that parents often face numerous challenges when searching for suitable daycare services, such as limited availability and long waiting lists, 

high costs, inadequate quality of care, insufficient information or reviews.

75% of parents in Switzerland trust recommendations from friends and family the most when choosing a daycare service, but obtaining these recommendations in an organised way can be a pain. Additionally, 80% rated quality as the most important factor when choosing a daycare service, but only 25% found the overall process of finding a suitable daycare to be difficult or extremely difficult. 

Feedback

Our data from the survey and in-depth interviews showed that while quality is the most important factor when choosing a daycare service, recommendations from friends and family are the most trusted source of information.

Landing on the Solution 

The goal of DaycareBuddy is to simplify the search for suitable daycare services leveraging ratings and recommendations from their friends and families. The hypothesis is that if parents can leverage ratings and recommendations from friends and family, it will lead to more quality placements and effectively alleviate stress and support a healthy work-life balance for parents, while fostering trust and reliability in the daycare selection process.

Explanation of Solution 

The first ideas that will be tested and validated (for each of them we will need to come up with hypotheses) as cheaply as possible (e.g. low fidelity prototypes) together with the team are: 

• Simple and intuitive social recommendation service (e.g. platform or similar) that allows parents to request and receive recommendations for daycare services from their friends and other parents.

• Specific rating criteria: Implement a set of predefined criteria for parents to rate daycare services, providing actionable insights for others in their search.

• Integration with existing social networks: Enable parents to connect their existing social media accounts, making it easy to find friends and acquaintances who have experience with daycare services.

User Flows/Mockup 

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Future Steps

I will continue with the 8-Week Boot Camp and take my experience and lessons learned to come up with a valuable, usable, feasible and viable solution for the identified problem space together with a team of designers and engineers.