Overview

Look After is a wellness app designed for new mothers experiencing postpartum depression (PPD). The app provides scientific guidance, mood tracking, a calming interface, and a supportive community to help mothers recover mentally and emotionally after childbirth.

My Role

I conceptualized the app with the team, led user research, testing, and design development, and guided the project from ideation to high-fidelity prototypes.

Problem

12–16% of mothers experience postpartum depression, often underdiagnosed or overlooked. Existing apps are paywalled, low-quality, or fail to provide meaningful support. As a result, mothers face emotional isolation, lack of guidance, and unmet mental health needs during a vulnerable time.

Goal

Design a trusted, empathetic, and easy-to-use app that supports new mothers emotionally and mentally, provides practical coping strategies, and fosters a sense of community.

Discover

We explored postpartum depression (PPD) to understand factors influencing perinatal health. Key takeaways:

Mobile use is high among perinatal women:
A 2016 study (Osma et al.) surveyed 509 pregnant/postpartum women and found:
- 90% searched for health-related info online
- 72% downloaded apps
- Mobile phones were the most used device (47.5%)
Nutritional deficiencies are linked to PPD:
During pregnancy and postpartum recovery (especially after cesarean births), women have higher nutrient needs. Poor nutrition can increase the risk of PPD and slow physical healing.

These findings helped us understand both the digital behavior and physical/emotional needs of our users.

User Interviews (5 participants, ages 28–39):

Mothers reported feeling unprepared for PPD, lack of personal check-ins, and focus on the baby over themselves.
Common emotions: isolation, sadness, fatigue, guilt, and inadequacy.
Pain points: “I felt like something was wrong with me,” discomfort with new body, persistent sadness.

Insight: Mothers need an empathetic, holistic support system that addresses emotional, mental, and physical needs during postpartum.

User Survey

We surveyed new mothers about their journey from pregnancy to motherhood to gain a better understanding of their emotional and mental well-being.

Key insights:

Emotional disconnect: While many mothers expressed happiness about their baby, some shared that they were not happy with themselves, feeling emotionally drained, isolated, and alone.
Self-worth struggles: Several women admitted they didn’t love themselves or struggled to understand their own emotions.
Need for connection: Many expressed a desire for group support and tools to help them make sense of their feelings.
Strong interest in support tools:
85.7% said they would be interested in using a postpartum app to help them navigate this phase.

These insights highlighted a gap in emotional support for new mothers, informing our design decisions moving forward.

click to view

User Interviews

We conducted interviews with five mothers, ages 28–39, to explore their emotional and mental well-being postpartum.

Key Findings:

Most mothers felt uninformed about postpartum depression (PPD) and unprepared for its symptoms.
They experienced a lack of personal check-ins, and the focus was often on the baby, not the mother.
Common feelings included:
- Isolation
- Sadness and fatigue
- Overwhelm, shame, and guilt

Pain Points:

“I felt like something was wrong with me.”
Discomfort and dissociation from their new body
A deep sense of unknown sadness
Persistent feelings of failure or inadequacy

These interviews revealed a critical gap in maternal support and emotional validation, further reinforcing the need for an empathetic, supportive postpartum solution.

Define

Persona

Margaux, a new mother, loves her baby but feels lost, disconnected, and emotionally overwhelmed. She represents mothers silently experiencing PPD without access to trustworthy support.

click to view

Journey Insight

Her experience shows mothers often feel ignored, isolated, and unsupported, highlighting the need for accessible, empathetic, and evidence-based tools.

Ideating

Design Principles

Emotional safety: Reduce shame and uncertainty during postpartum recovery
Low cognitive load: Short sessions, gentle interactions
Validation first: Normalize feelings before offering guidance

Key Experience Decisions

Mood tracking to help mothers identify emotional patterns without judgment
Science-backed education to explain postpartum mental health in simple language
Community support to reduce isolation and create shared understanding

Visual Direction

Calm color palette and soft typography to reduce stress
Minimal layouts with generous spacing
Gentle tone to create a sense of trust and safety.

Lo-Fi

For Look After, we created lo-fi wireframes, basic, simple layouts that focus on where key elements like buttons and text go, without any colors or detailed visuals. These wireframes helped us quickly test the app’s structure and user flow, so we could make improvements early before adding design polish

View Lo-Fi

Mid-Fi

Mid-fi wireframes added more detail to the basic layouts by showing better structure, spacing, and content placement, though still without final colors or images. This helped us get a clearer idea of how the app would look and feel, making it easier to gather feedback on usability and flow before moving on to high-fidelity designs.

View Mid-Fi

In addition to the UX strategy, I also developed a calming, supportive visual system for LookAfter. The style tile, UI components, and high-fidelity screens were designed to reflect the app’s empathetic tone and make users feel safe and understood.

View UI Style Tyle

Validate

Prototype

Usability Testing (10 participants):

Completion rate: 80% (8/10 users completed tasks).
Average time: 2m33s — aligned with goal for a short, focused experience.
Engagement: Users who completed the tasks spent 3–5 minutes exploring the app, indicating interest once onboarded.

Next Steps / Iteration:

Highlight key features and guidance tools more prominently.
Continue testing community engagement features and mood tracking usability..

Conclusion

Look After addresses a critical gap in postpartum mental health support. By providing emotional support, evidence-based resources, and a supportive community, the app empowers mothers to navigate postpartum challenges with confidence, reduces feelings of isolation, and raises awareness of postpartum depression. This project demonstrates the impact of empathetic, user-centered design in supporting mental health during a vulnerable period.