Within the MOME ID course, a two-person team, including myself, developed a digital product from problem formulation to clickable UI prototype. The project allowed us to navigate through every stage of the product design process using the double diamond methodology. We conducted user interviews, participated in ideation workshops, created user journeys, drafted functional specifications, wireframes, UI design, and finally performed usability tests, covering everything from scenario writing to usability test execution.

The digital product consisted of two parts: an application designed for tablets aimed at caregivers and a mobile application for parents. I focused on the caregiver's part, while my teammate worked on the mobile application, effectively dividing the tasks.

In Hungarian daycare centers, communication is predominantly paper-based. Communication occurs mostly through personal conversations but is also documented in paper notebooks and on the daycare bulletin board, which can be somewhat cumbersome. Lunch and other cancellations are challenging, and parents have limited communication with caregivers.

Our research hypothesis was that parents of daycare children perceive daycare communication as a problem and would like more information about their child's time at the daycare. Thus, our primary goal was to address this issue through a digital platform.

We preconceived that caregivers are somewhat overloaded, resistant to change, and burdened with administrative obligations. To validate our hypothesis, we conducted research, including user interviews with parents and caregivers and observational techniques.

The research results significantly changed our hypothesis. While parents expressed frustration about their child attending daycare, they were generally satisfied with communication between the daycare and parents, not perceiving the current situation as a problem. However, they expressed a desire for more information about their child's time at daycare.

On the other hand, caregivers have more administrative obligations than initially thought, spending increasing amounts of time on them. The same information often needs to be documented in 2-3 places. Directors sometimes take work home, and there are legally prescribed times for administration (usually during sleep time). Caregivers want to change this situation.

After processing and analyzing the research results, we decided to primarily ease the work of caregivers by digitizing the current paper-based administration. As we compiled the tasks performed by caregivers and managers, it became clear that this information could also be very useful for parents. Therefore, we envisioned a system where information is shared with authorized individuals, allowing both the daycare and parents to contribute. This way, we could alleviate both caregiver difficulties and parent problems.

We designed the features and user flows. Initially, we wanted to design for desktop for caregivers due to the extensive typing. However, it quickly became evident that a tablet was the best choice, offering more mobility, and both photo-taking and administration could be done on a single device, eliminating the need for an additional phone.

The educational system has already undergone the process of digitization; what fate awaits daycare centers?