CASE STUDY
Designing an Inclusive Onboarding Flow to Match Families and Sitters
Overview
As a product designer, I led the design of the onboarding and profile creation experience for a mobile app that connects parents with babysitters. The goal was to create a seamless and personalized setup flow that would allow both parties to enter detailed preferences, resulting in more compatible and trustworthy matches.
Problem
Parents and babysitters often struggle to find matches that align with their values, schedules, and comfort levels. Existing apps tended to focus on logistics like availability and distance, but overlooked personal compatibility factors such as cultural background, language, religion, or pet preferences. The challenge was to design an onboarding and profile experience that gathered meaningful data in a way that felt simple, respectful, and human, and used that data to surface better matches.
My Role
Led product design for onboarding and profile creation in a mobile app connecting parents and babysitters.
Conducted research including competitive analysis of similar apps and interviews with parents and babysitters.
Defined user-centered design strategy to gather meaningful preferences while keeping the experience simple and respectful.
Built a modular design system in Figma to ensure UI consistency and scalability.
Approach
- Researched top-rated apps (e.g., Bumble, Care.com, and Sittercity) to evaluate how they handle onboarding and profile creation.
- Identified friction points in how preferences were collected and the lack of transparency in profile information.
- Interviewed parents and babysitters to understand what builds trust and confidence in a match.
User-Centered Design Strategy
We focused on creating a thoughtful and inclusive onboarding experience that asked the right questions at the right time, without overwhelming users. Key criteria we prioritized:
- Language, cultural background, political and religious compatibility
- Comfort with pets, home cameras, and transportation access
- Babysitter’s experience and preferred age groups
- Parental expectations and household dynamics
Profile Summaries for Instant Clarity
I designed a clear, card-style summary at the top of each profile, giving a quick snapshot of preferences and demographics, allowing users to quickly assess compatibility.
Design System Development
- Created a modular, mobile-first design system in Figma to support UI consistency and scalability.
- Defined visual components like input fields, progress indicators, and tags for preferences.
Client Collaboration
- Worked closely with the client to balance business goals with user needs.
- Shared prototypes frequently and iterated based on their feedback and changing requirements.
Parent Onboarding
Sitter Onboarding
Sitter Prompts
Profile Summary
Strategic Findings
- Trust-building through transparency: Users were more likely to complete profiles and connect with matches when preferences and home details (e.g., cameras, pets, personality, values, parenting styles, home life and routine) were surfaced clearly up front.
- Incremental input improves completion: Breaking onboarding into small, digestible steps increased engagement and reduced user fatigue.
- Contextual education matters: Tooltips and microcopy explaining why certain questions were asked (e.g., religious views, political alignment) led to increase in input completion.
What I learned
- Designing for compatibility means considering emotional, cultural, and safety needs, not just logistics.
- Building trust starts with transparency and continues through thoughtful interface decisions.
- Early investment in a design system improves both user experience and dev collaboration down the line.
- The most successful designs often emerge through close client collaboration and deep empathy with real users.
Conclusion
This project was a great example of how thoughtful design, grounded in research and executed with strategic clarity, can lead to stronger user trust and product success. By focusing on what truly matters to parents and babysitters, we helped make a typically stressful and uncertain process feel more empowering, personal, and safe. The resulting product not only met business objectives but also created meaningful value for the people who rely on it.