Problem

With kid-focused products, one element that should always be considered the way it connects to a parent’s already existing workflow. For the Gabb devices, this meant syncing with a smartphone app. When Gabb first released the MyGabb app it was rapidly designed in-house and development was out-sourced. While handling it this way can have certain pros like budget and timeline, it does come with its cons; in this case, flexibility and scalability. 

While considering these limitations, we decided our new goal was to create an updated version of the app that would be both designed and developed by Gabb, in house. The new app needed to have all the functionality of the old app with some upgrades the marketing and customer support teams had long been asking for.

Ideation & Research

Since we had the opportunity to rework an already existing app, I made sure to do user testing with both current users and completely new customers to make sure we appeased both market’s needs. This research led the team to make some valuable decisions that could have gone a different way had we not taken the time to talk to our users. 

My job is to lead design on the app, moving from initial lo-fi ideation all the way to working with Gabb’s android and ios developers. The app is still in development which gives me the opportunity to collaborate cross-functionally with teams like the content team, the customer support team, and so many more. This involvement from a variety of teams helps me to make sure we’re avoiding any potential blind spots in our design

Solution

What we’ve designed is something I like to call “Parity+” where the features and functionality included are the same, but the way the user utilizes them is much easier. An example of this can be seen in the way things are applied to different children’s devices. If you wanted to add a contact to multiple children’s devices, you’d have to go to each child profile and create a new contact individually on each profile. With the new Gabb Family™ app, you navigate to contacts from any child profile, create the contact, and can then assign it to one or as many children’s devices you’d like to. 

From the start of the project, the idea was that once the Gabb Family™ app is released, the Gabb team won’t be reworking it; but will instead be updating it with new and improved features. The app we’ve put together is designed in a way that emphasizes potential scalability that will benefit the Gabb product team for years to come.