Kinderspot
Facilitating subletting for childcare spots
The idea for Kinderspot came from an Air Force Innovation Rodeo. The goal of this project was to create an app to allow parents who had children enrolled full-time at a Department of the Air Force Child Development Center (CDC) to advertise available weeks to sublet their spots for short-term segments while they were gone on vacation or temporary-duty assignments. These available spots could then be reserved through the app by verified spot renters. An administrative portal was also created to give CDC Admin the ability to verify and manage spot holders and spot renters, and give visibility to reservations and cancellations from the app users.
METHODS USED:
Stakeholder Interviews, User Interviews, Information Architecture, UX Wireframes, Prototypes, UI Design, Branding, Design System, User Testing, Iterative Design
"The miracle is this: The more we share the more we have."
LEONARD NIMROY
MY ROLE
I served as the sole UX designer after working for six months with designers from an Air Force UX Studio to facilitate research, conduct interviews, and produce wireframes and prototypes using Figma. Six months later, in the summer of 2021, the MVP app and admin site went online at nine Air Force bases. As the functionality of the app and admin portal continued to grow based on user research and stakeholder feedback, I collaborated closely with the development team to continue to make improvements.
DISCOVERY
Learning through listening
In order to determine the way customers interacted with CDCs and their successes and failures in subletting, I initiated a discovery process to determine how CDC customers were currently handling subletting and what pain points they were having in the process. This discovery material was used to drive app development and to understand any risks to rollout. We performed two studies: a qualitative interview session with CDC users and staff, and a quantitative survey of the same demographics. Both styles used the same initial set of survey questions to guide discovery.
The goal of our data gathering was to gain deep dive insights through participant interviews and support any findings with quantitative analysis. Over 30 people were individually interviewed, and more than 400 surveys were returned. Data was consolidated in Dovetail and we constructed personas and user journeys in Figma to help understand how customers would interact with the app, and what we needed to build out to best support the tasks of the CDC Admin.
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Nine personas were created, as well as emotional journeys and journey maps for the spot holder, subletter, and CDC Admin. The general consensus was that the app was a great idea and there was a lot of support from parents.
CREATION
Bringing an idea to life
This project evolved from simple information architecture to high fidelity wireframes, interactive UX prototypes, and the foundations of a design system.
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We continued to test along the way, with Facebook polls, beta testing, and one-on-one testing of the flows, working in changes based on user feedback.
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After finalizing the user interface, and completing the design system, I worked with the project manager and the development team to ensure that the intent of the design was understood and recreated in the final production of web and mobile applications.
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I also worked with the branding for the project, as well as developing a brochure website, promotional app video, and advertising materials which included print materials, tutorials, and interactive social media ads for the bases where the app was launched.
As of 2025, this app is now in use at all Air Force bases worldwide.
