Nurture Nest
Support and Recovery, Simplified
Overview
Nurture Nest is a postpartum support and recovery planner designed to reduce mental load for new mothers during the early weeks after birth. The product helps coordinate help from friends and family, track daily recovery, and store medical questions in a calm, low-effort experience designed for cognitive fatigue.
Problem Statement
A first-time postpartum mother is a sleep-deprived parent navigating recovery, hormonal changes, and newborn care who needs a low-effort way to request help and track her wellbeing because support often exists but is unstructured, leaving the burden of coordination on her.
Possible Solution
Nurture Nest is a postpartum support and recovery planner that helps new mothers coordinate help, track their physical and emotional wellbeing, and manage medical appointments, all within a calm, privacy-first experience designed for cognitive fatigue.
Target Audience
- Postpartum mothers who are recovering physically + emotionally and need simple, low-effort support tools
- First-time momsexperiencing information overload, anxiety, and uncertainty about what's “normal”
- Mothers with limited support systems (partner working, family far away, few friends nearby)
- Support people(partner, family, close friends) who genuinely want to help but don't know what to do or how to coordinate
The Approach
To design a solution that genuinely supports mothers during the postpartum period, I followed a user-centered design process focused on understanding real experiences and reducing cognitive load.
Empathize
User Research
User Interviews
Define
User Persona
Goal Statement
Empathy Map
Ideate
Site Map
User Flow
How Might We’s
Design
LowFi Wireframes
Visual Design
Test
Usability Tests
Improvements
My Role
Project Timeline
Week
Week
Week
Week
Week
Week
Week
Week
1st Week
Strategy (Research)
2nd Week
Interviews, Empathy Map
3rd Week
Problem Statement & Goal Statement
4th Week
Competitive Analysis & Information Architecture
6th Week
Lo-Fi Wireframes
7th Week
Visual Design
8th Week
Usability Testing
Empathize Phase
Qualitative Research
Qualitative research was conducted to better understand the challenges mothers experience during the early postpartum period and how they coordinate support during recovery.
This research included five semi-structured interviews with mothers between 0–12 weeks postpartum, along with community research from postpartum forums and a competitive audit of existing tools. These conversations provided insight into the emotional and practical challenges mothers face, including sleep deprivation, difficulty asking for help, fragmented support coordination, and the lack of tools designed specifically to support maternal recovery.
Interview Questions
- What was your support situation like? (partner, family nearby, etc.)
- What felt hardest in the first 2–6 weeks?
- What did you need help with the most?
- When people offered help, what usually happened?
- What made it hard or awkward to ask for help?
- Did you use any apps/tools? Which ones?
- What didn't work about them?
- If you could wave a magic wand and have one tool postpartum, what would it do?
- What would make you actually keep using it?
Key Insight Derived
- “I wished someone could just look at a list and pick something instead of making me decide.”
- “It wasn't that I didn't have support, it just wasn't organized.”
- “I was so sleep deprived I wasn't capable of making decisions, I didn't even know what I needed in the moment other than sleep.”
- “I needed reassurance that what I was feeling mentally and physically was normal.”
Quantitative Research
Interview responses were analyzed to identify measurable patterns across participants. By translating recurring responses into percentages, I was able to quantify how common certain postpartum challenges were among participants.
The data below highlights key trends related to sleep deprivation impacting decision-making, discomfort asking for help, reliance on multiple tools to manage postpartum life, and the lack of solutions focused on maternal recovery.
Did sleep deprivation make it harder to make decisions during the first weeks postpartum?
Did you have people willing to help, but without a clear system for organizing that help?
Did you feel uncomfortable directly asking people for help?
Did the apps you used focus more on tracking the baby rather than supporting your recovery?
Did you rely on multiple tools (texts, notes, apps, calendars) to manage postpartum tasks or questions?
Key Insight Derived
- 80% said sleep deprivation impacted decision making
- 70% said asking for help felt uncomfortable
- 83% of apps analyzed focused on baby tracking
- 68% used multiple tools to manage postpartum tasks
- 80% said support existed but wasn't organized
Define Phase
Goal Statement
Our postpartum support and recovery planner will let users coordinate support tasks, track recovery with daily check-ins, and store medical questions for appointments which will affect new mothers in the early postpartum weeks and their support network by reducing mental load, making it easier to request help, and providing a simple place to track recovery and important information during a cognitively demanding time.
We will measure effectiveness by daily check-in completion rate, number of support tasks created and claimed, onboarding completion rate, and user return rate after 7 days.
User Persona
Ashleigh Green
- Age
- 29
- Education
- Bachelor's Degree
- Status
- Married, 1st time mom
- Occupation
- Marketing Manager (on maternity leave)
- Location
- Denver, Colorado
Personality
Brief Story
Ashleigh is three weeks postpartum and adjusting to life with her newborn while recovering physically and emotionally. Although friends and family offer help, coordinating that support feels overwhelming while she is sleep deprived. The tools she currently uses focus on the baby, leaving her without an easy way to track her own recovery or organize support.
Goals
- Recover physically and emotionally while adjusting to life with a newborn
- Have an easy way to organize and coordinate help from family and friends
- Track how she is feeling day-to-day without adding extra mental effort
Frustations
- Feeling overwhelmed by decision-making due to sleep deprivation
- Support offers that are vague and require her to coordinate everything
- Existing apps focus on the baby rather than supporting her recovery
- Important questions for doctors getting lost in notes apps or texts
Needs
- A simple way to request help without feeling like a burden
- A central place to track recovery, mood, pain, and sleep
- An easy way to save questions and notes for medical appointments
- Tools that reduce cognitive load instead of adding complexity
Motivations
- Feeling reassured that her recovery and emotions are normal
- Having more time and mental space to focus on bonding with her baby
- Feeling supported by family and friends without needing to manage every detail
Luis Suarez
- Age
- 31
- Education
- Bachelor's Degree
- Status
- Friend of the mother
- Occupation
- Software Engineer
- Location
- Denver, Colorado
Personality
Brief Story
Luis is a close friend of a new mother and wants to be supportive during her postpartum recovery. He regularly checks in and offers help, but often doesn't know what would actually be useful. When he asks how he can help, the response is usually “I'm okay” or “I'll let you know,” leaving him unsure what to do next.
Goals
- Help the new mother in ways that are genuinely useful
- Easily see what tasks or support are needed
- Contribute support without adding extra stress
Frustations
- Not knowing what kind of help is actually needed
- Vague responses like “I’ll let you know”
- Feeling like he might be bothering the mother during a stressful time
Needs
- A clear list of ways to help
- Simple tasks he can claim without needing coordination
- Visibility into what has already been taken care of
Motivations
- Supporting someone he cares about during a difficult transition
- Being helpful without creating additional stress for the mother
- Feeling confident that his help is meaningful and appreciated
Empathy Map
Says
- “I wished someone could just look at a list and pick something instead of making me decide.”
- “I was so sleep deprived I wasn’t capable of making decisions.”
- “Let me know if you need anything sounds nice, but I never know what to ask for.”
- “I needed reassurance that what I was feeling mentally and physically was normal.”
Thinks
- “Other moms handle this, I should be able to too.”
- “I don’t want to bother people by asking for help.”
- “Am I recovering normally?”
- “I wish someone could just take over the small tasks so I can focus on the baby.”
Does
- Uses a baby tracking app to monitor feedings and diapers
- Writes doctor questions in her notes app
- Scrolls through group texts from friends and family offering help
- Tries to manage household tasks even when exhausted
Feels
- Overwhelmed from sleep deprivation and emotional changes
- Guilty asking others for help
- Relieved when someone offers concrete support
- Reassured when she knows her recovery experiences are normal
Ideate Phase
User Flow
How Might We
- How might we help postpartum mothers receive help without needing to coordinate everything themselves?
- How might we reduce decision-making for sleep-deprived mothers when they don't know what to ask for?
- How might we help mothers track recovery in a way that feels gentle, private, and non-clinical?
- How might we reduce the number of apps and places mothers rely on to manage postpartum life?
- How might we make it easier for family and friends to help in a way that's actually useful?
Site Map
Low Fidelity Wireframes
Typography & Colors
Primary Font
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1234567890
Secondary Font
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
1234567890
Primary
#69CE99
Red
#F66D6D
Yellow
#FFDB59
Green
#66C97A
Purple
#DECDF5
Primary Text
#141615
Secondary Text
#3E4341
Outline
#B0BCB5
Background
#FAFFFC
BG Color
#EDFCF3
Visual Design
Reflection
One feature I am particularly proud of is the support task list, which allows mothers to easily share specific ways others can help. Research showed that while support often exists, it is rarely organized, and many mothers feel uncomfortable directly asking for help. This feature aims to reduce that friction by allowing helpers to choose tasks independently.
Working on this project reinforced the importance of simplicity in design, especially when building for users experiencing fatigue, stress, and emotional vulnerability. As someone who has experienced the postpartum period myself, this perspective helped guide many of the design decisions.
If I were to continue developing this product, the next step would be conducting additional usability testing with postpartum mothers to better understand how the experience performs in real-life situations and identify opportunities for further refinement.
Thank you for taking the time to review this case study.
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