NICU Audio App
Category:
UX Strategy & Mobile Design
Duration:
2 months
Client:
Johns Hopkins University
Spanish-speaking parents in Johns Hopkins' NICU faced a painful gap: limited time with doctors, a language barrier, and no way to prepare or capture their most urgent questions. Johns Hopkins Ideas Lab needed a solution that could help parents feel informed and empowered during one of the hardest moments of their lives.
The entire project (design, development, and analytics) had to be delivered in 2 months and on a $2,000 budget. That meant every decision had to count. I started by asking: what does this experience need to feel like, not just function like? These were parents whose babies were in critical care, many of them far from home and navigating an unfamiliar language. I drew on warm, culturally resonant visual references and deliberately avoided the clichéd palette of baby blues and pinks.
One decision I'm especially proud of: we initially used a heart icon to let parents save questions. Midway through, I caught that a heart was completely wrong for this context. Nobody wants to 'heart' the question 'why is my baby in the NICU.' I pushed to replace it with a bookmark — which felt neutral, practical, and respectful of what the moment actually was. At the wireframe stage, we tested with real Spanish-speaking parents. They responded positively and their key feedback — that they wanted to save questions to bring to appointments — directly shaped the final product, turning a passive information tool into an active preparation companion.
This project taught me that great UX strategy isn't just about solving the functional problem — it's about understanding the emotional context your users are living in. Designing for dignity and clarity within a $2,000 budget made every decision feel meaningful.
