Just Care For Families

Just Care for Families is a companion app for an Oregon family program that helps parents build strong, healthy, and rewarding relationships with their children.

Methods
Product Design
Client
Just Care For Families
Duration
6 months
Tools
Figma, Figjam
Product
Visit Website

Our task was to create and launch a mobile companion app for our client's successful JustCare Program. With a tight budget and deadline, we had to define what portions of their program could reasonably be designed and implemented in Phase 1.

The Just Care program strives to support families and promote prevention through person-centered and trauma-informed services. They work with a coach to track their moods, habits and behaviors. With the mobile app, the client's will be able to have access to worksheets to help process their experiences and can track their moods and habits that can be relayed to their coach.

For  Phase 1 we would work with the client to agree upon what the MVP would look like, what is a must-have and what can be pushed to Phase 2.

The ideal Product Trio: the PM worked on requirements, I designed the general UX and UI, and we had daily syncs with our over seas engineering team to ensure alignment.

To kick off the project, we were given the previous Figma file and a program pamphlet. These materials helped us understand the experience the client envisioned. We proposed several improvements and used user journeys to communicate our recommendations.
We worked with an overseas development team which we could only meet with once a daily. I would document all desicions and create videos for the developers to review everday. The asnychronous workflow allowed us to progress quickly across time zones.

Design Challenges

One of the main challenges was translating the program into a digital experience. The client had ambitious ideas, but we needed to ensure everything remained within a reasonable scope.

In the end, we simplified activities, streamlined interactive elements, and combined certain role permissions to create a more focused and manageable product showcased through a simple information architecture artifact.

Design and development ran in parallel, with wireframes serving as the primary handoff. We held daily syncs and demos to ensure everyone stayed aligned as changes occurred.

Development was able to build the product structure using wireflows, while I was given extra time to polish the UI. By using prebuilt components, I quickly created and implemented UI elements for delivery.

This workflow allowed the development team to work without final designs. Using Claude Code, they were able to efficiently update in-app wireframes into polished UI components.

Conclusion

After completing my primary role, I remained on standby to support design and engineering while moving on to my next project. The working prototype was delivered on time.

The algorithm and fully functional app were delivered one month after the initial proposed deadline due to a late-stage feature expansion involving additional user permissions and admin controls.

Today, the app is being used successfully by the program. The team has since received another government grant to continue expanding product features, which our team is currently supporting.
The app is being used today by the program with great success. They were able to receive another government grant to continue to expand their product features which our team is currently working on.

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Want to learn more about this project? Reach out!  kristina@sketchytrails.com