MINJOO.KIM

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MINJOO.KIM

Peek-A-Boo

A mobile app designed to help childcare educators share daily updates with parents more efficiently and professionally.

It allows educators to quickly log activities like nap time, meals, and bathroom breaks, while reducing time spent on screens. By using AI voice input and suggested message templates, the app improves communication without taking attention away from the children.
Team: Solo Project
Timeline: 1 month
Role: UX/UI Design
OVERVIEW
Background
Childcare centers are increasingly adopting technology and mobile apps to improve communication with parents. Effective communication between educators and parents is crucial for guiding a child’s development, interests, growth, and health. However, many childcare centers and educators still struggle with outdated workflows or existing digital childcare apps, leading to inefficiencies in parent communication and workflow management.
Problems
One significant problem was that early childhood educators struggled to use the app while looking after their students. Even though they took turns updating the children’s activities in the app, it was challenging to use it while working, which led to frustration among the educators.
Solution
As someone that used to work in Early Childhood education, I met many educators who struggled to report daily progress in an efficient manner to parents on a daily basis. This inspired me to develop an app that improves communication and benefits both educators and parents. I firmly believed that there was an opportunity to enhance their workflows with the ultimate goal to foster a positive approach to the child’s growth and development.
OVERVIEW
Background
While working in a childcare, I saw how much time and energy educators spent struggling with outdated daycare apps. These tools were supposed to make communication easier, but instead, they created friction and distraction. Educators were often focused more on logging updates than on engaging with the children.

This inspired me to design a tool that fits naturally into their workflow, improves the quality of communication, and lets them stay present with the kids.
Problems
Distraction from Children
Educators needed to focus on caring for the children, but updating the app took time and attention away from them.
Confusing and Error-Prone Interface
Existing apps had too many steps, unclear flows, and frequent glitches. This made it frustrating to use, especially during busy times.
Missed or Inconsistent Communication with Parents
Educators and parents often had important information to share, such as reminders or behavior updates. But messages were sometimes forgotten or written in a rush, leading to miscommunication or an unprofessional tone.
Solution
Smarter Workflow
Educators can activate the app hands-free using a voice command. The AI then guides them through a simple process to record activities like nap time, meals, or diaper changes.
Message Suggestions for Clear and Professional Communication
The app offers smart message suggestions based on the child’s activities or routine. This helps educators respond quickly while maintaining a consistent and professional tone.
Simple and Intuitive Workflow
Peek-A-Boo was designed to work with an educator’s natural routine. Every interaction was simplified to reduce screen time and increase presence with the children.

Simply click a button to update children's activities

Use suggested messages to save time and keep communication consistent.

The approach I took
Design Process
1. DISCOVER
Discovering What Educators Truly Needed
Based on my own experience in childcare, I had already observed the challenges educators faced while using daycare apps. But to make sure these weren’t just personal observations, I validated the problems through one-on-one interviews with four participants, including both educators and parents.

These conversations helped me understand not only the technical frustrations but also the emotional stress caused by juggling updates while caring for children. Parents also shared how inconsistent or missing messages made them feel disconnected from their child’s day.

This early discovery process gave me a clearer picture of the pain points from both sides and helped shape a solution that truly supports everyday classroom communication.
Conducted via
Zoom | In person
Age Group
20-40
years old
Participants
4
Here’s what some of the educators and parents shared during the interviews:
Jin | Educator
Having a daycare app is not helping our workflow efficiently. In fact, it seems to be creating extra work.
Anna | Educator
A daycare app is helpful for tracking children’s activities, but it can distract educators from watching children.
Anela | Parent
Finding a suitable time to discuss my child with educators is challenging due to their busy schedules.
Key Insights Uncovered:
After synthesizing the feedback from interviews, I identified three key themes that educators and parents consistently brought up.
Reliability
Educators experience frustration due to frequent errors in their current daycare app, highlighting the need for a stable and user-friendly interface.
Efficiency
There is demand to have a simplified user interface which helps make workflows easier while considering the reality of educators having to watch multiple kids.
Digitization
While there are frustrations with other apps and their designs, educators and parents do desire modern digital channels & platforms to help them with their work & communicate with one another in real-time.
See more insights
Competitive analysis
By focusing on key criteria for an objective assessment, I aimed to deeply understand the daycare app market, identify competitors, and strategically position my app for distinctiveness.
Competitive Analysis
The key insights are :
  • Competitor apps often overwhelm educators with excessive features, reducing their effectiveness and usability.
  • Despite having well-structured features, competitor apps struggle with engaging parents either by focusing only on educator reporting or have a lack of communication or benefits for parents to use the platform.
  • The analysis highlights the need for prioritizing communication and engagement features that foster a strong parent-teacher partnership.
2. Define
How Might We?
How might we enhance an educators’ workflow to help them better care for their students?
What is the most important aspect of the project?
With limited time, I prioritized enhancing educators’ workflows over fostering communication between users. Reflecting on my goals and user frustrations, I realized improving workflows would also positively impact communication with parents, addressing both needs effectively.
User persona
I created two user personas, as I am focusing on both educator (Nancy) and parent (Mackenzie) perspectives. I wanted to gain a deeper understanding of their respective needs in order to design the best features to support each child's growth and development.
User Persona (Educator)
smiling woman wearing white and black pinstriped collared top
Nancy Lucie
I nurture confident, curious learners by creating a loving space where every child feels seen, heard, and inspired to grow.
Key Need
A simple, easy-to-navigate app that helps educators share children’s learning and stories with parents effortlessly.
Key Frustration
Feeling overwhelmed by the amount of administrative tasks and struggling to report effectively using the current app.
User Persona (Parent)
Happy daughter
Mackenzie Doram
Sometimes I feel left out of my child’s learning journey. I wish I could see more of what they do during the day.
Key Need
Better communication between educators and parents about their child.
Key Frustration
Late or missing updates on their child’s progress or behaviour.
Simplified Userflow
Identified several key steps essential for improving the overall experience
3. Develop
UI Library
Wireframes
I focused on minimizing the number of steps and simplifying the interface by refining the page layout and button actions. The goal was to streamline the process so educators could update activities quickly and stay focused on the children, rather than spending time navigating the app.
Updating Activities
Suggested message
4. Testing
Testing Final Product
Conducted via
Zoom | In person
Age Group
20-40
years old
Participants
4
Key Takeaways from usability testing:
  • Participants mentioned that the icons throughout the platform were a bit small and they required larger buttons in order to accurately click the buttons
  • Some participants noted that the main page is too plain and lacks impactful colors, which may make users feel bored or disengaged.
  • Most participants felt that the "suggested replies" feature was hidden and suggested displaying it in an area where users can easily access it

CONCLUSION

Completing this project taught me the importance of understanding users’ real needs and focusing on the right target audience. Through testing, I realized that including participants who were not the primary users, like grandparents, led to misaligned feedback. I learned that when interviewees do not agree with the product concept, it is important as a designer to stay focused, not take it personally, and move forward thoughtfully. Clear communication, setting expectations, and building trust with users are essential to gather meaningful insights. This experience strengthened my belief that continuous testing, empathy, and critical thinking are key to designing products that truly improve people’s daily lives.
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