This article is written by Ruzanna Baldryan, communications lead at Armenia’s SDG Innovation Lab.

  • The problem: A maternal health information platform needs to truly resonate with people’s needs — even down to the colour scheme of the platform.
  • Why it matters: If we don’t understand how the users think and use the service or the product, we might create something that no one trusts, or worse, uses.
  • The solution: Gain insights into users’ minds by applying various design thinking tools, collecting feedback, and holding multiple testing sessions.

A new mother we surveyed as part of an empathy mapping for user research for the BarevBalik project (Armenian for “Hello, kiddo”), which is making science-based information accessible to parents online and is piloting a digitalised vaccination service, gave us one of the most insightful comments: “One of the major problems was the privacy issue, because of which I refrained from asking questions to the doctor. There was a question that I couldn't ask until my delivery day — the only time I finally got a private moment with my doctor. I cried so much because I realised I should have asked it long ago.”

The BarevBalik platform

The perinatal period is an inevitable unknown that most moms and moms-to-be face at a time when they are expected to be calm, decisive, and confident. However, our empathy mapping revealed otherwise. Preparing for motherhood can be scary and confusing for parents-to-be and parents who are looking for any reliable sources of information that can guide them in both difficult times and their everyday lives.

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On one hand, there is a vast amount of (mis)information available online, which can lead to information overload or wrong positive affirmations if not scientifically backed. On the other hand, doctors are assigned to too many patients to be on high alert 24/7 and answer all the questions that patients have. Sometimes, they end up answering those very private questions in a room full of other patients (to make time for everyone). This can result in people feeling lost and developing trust issues, or worse — making irrational choices relying on “collective wisdom” which might not necessarily be backed by evidence and is sometimes even harmful to the mother and the baby.

According to our stakeholders — the policymakers at the Ministry of Health — one way to address the issue could be empowering parents by providing them with the basic knowledge on maternal and child health, a solution that has been implemented in many developed countries. This way, parents can make evidence-based decisions and help lessen the burden on the overwhelmed health system: identify mild symptoms that can be treated at home and see the doctor when it is really necessary.

We should always try to walk in the user’s shoes to understand what they feel and to evaluate options from a user lens.

Contrary to the needs of policymakers and users, doctors think that leaving people to their own devices might result in misinterpretation of information and wrong choices, including avoiding going to the doctor at all.

Following a thorough literature review and numerous interviews with our end-users, policymakers, and doctors, several observations, and a co-creation session with parents, we came up with a concept that addresses the sweet spot where the needs of all parties intersect.

This is how the idea of BarevBalik — a one-stop-shop powered by evidence-based information and adjusted to the Armenian cultural realities for all the parents-to-be and parents out there seeking guidance on pregnancy and parenthood — evolved.

In pursuit of the right colour

What colour combination comes to your mind when you think of a maternal and child health app? What is the gender-neutral colour that can both spark joy and help our users trust the product? Orange? White? Purple? Green?

Back in 1973, the second president of IBM, Thomas J. Watson was telling students that “Good design is good business.” It is not surprising that various large brands invest heavily in usability testing before a single line of code is written. Colour is one of the most important design tools to impact users’ emotions and behavior and is an integral part of the experience that the user has with the product. Colour impacts conversions on some platforms and accounts for 90% of the reason why people purchase specific products.

There are an infinite number of possible colour combinations out there, and it could be hard to decide what colours are more appropriate for BarevBalik that would inspire trust in our users and stakeholders.

The onset of each product development is bumpy and has its peculiarities. On top of that, we are not our users, and by that, we can only assume what they are feeling or what challenges they are facing, but we can’t experience it ourselves. What the experience with our products, including Travelinsights.ai and Edu2work.am, taught our team is that developing solutions around user needs always improved outcomes.

So, we decided to set up some user research to test the colour palettes we came up with by using research and design trend. Since only users are experts of their experience, they should have a say in the solution designed to improve their experience․

We used surveys, user interviews, contextual inquiries, and some other techniques borrowed from UX (user experience) research to test colour. Not surprisingly, people preferred bright colours for such apps when given plain colour combinations.

user research on color choice Most of the users (40.2%) preferred the first colour combination. (photo: BarevBalik)

The opinions, however, differed when users were presented with the same combination in action — on the actual interface of the platform. They were opting for the brightest gradient colour palette, explaining their choice by the fact that they didn’t like that the darkest colour of their first preference was the dominant colour.

test of different color combinations Only 26.2% of users preferred the first colour combination when they saw it in action. (photo: BarevBalik)

The winning palette — Option C got 40.8% of votes — wasn’t the team’s favorite choice. After collecting as much information as possible and equipping ourselves with user stories, we shared the findings with the design and research teams.

Meeting user demand, not designer demand

Although it was tempting to choose the brightest colour palette, we decided to find a middle ground and combine user preferences with our knowledge. After some experimentation, we came up with a new colour combination and went for another round of testing, and this time the results were more interesting.

“It’s odd in the beginning because it’s a new combination I am not used to, but the more I look at it, the more I like it,” mentioned one of the moms during the usability testing. Most of the users found this combination even exhilarating.

What we learned from the tests is that we should always try to walk in the user’s shoes to understand what they feel and to evaluate options from a user lens, and probe unexplored perspectives. Considering the limitations of such interactions with users, approaching their insights critically sometimes leads to better outcomes. Sometimes, taking in the feedback with a pinch of salt and combining expert opinion and research insights might help to turn the product into something that can cater to everyone’s needs.

We will be leveling the playing field for our usability tests. We will keep you updated on how it goes. — Ruzanna Baldryan

Barev Balik is a two-year project currently in the making. It is implemented by Armenia National SDG Innovation Lab in cooperation with Viva-MTS and the Government of Armenia.

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