Overview
Pregnancy is a major medical event in a woman's life. Historically, women had a village of people supporting them before, during, and after pregnancy. Today, modern women often have a far smaller network. They've moved away from home, are less social, or are having children later in life.
Zayna was designed to give pregnant women a meaningful, low-pressure way to find that community on their phone and on their schedule.
1 · Problem Statement
The "village" that traditionally supported pregnant women has shrunk. Many women now go through pregnancy without nearby peers in the same stage, leaving them isolated during a period of intense physical, emotional, and informational change.
Existing pregnancy apps focus heavily on baby tracking, expert content, and clinical milestones. Few are built around the simple need that kept coming up in research: to talk to other women going through the same things.
2 · Users & Audience
Primary users are women currently navigating pregnancy who want community alongside medical care. A secondary group are women who had recently been pregnant to provide valuable retrospective insight during research.
I distributed an open-answer survey to women who were currently or previously pregnant, and asked:
- How did you prepare yourself for a healthy pregnancy journey?
- What concerns did you have about pregnancy?
- Did you try to connect with other pregnant women online or in person?
- Why did you want or not want to connect with other pregnant women?
- What concerns would you have about connecting with other pregnant women?
- How do you think social media influenced your pregnancy?
Standout responses
3 · Roles & Responsibilities
I was the sole designer on this project, end-to-end ownership across:
4 · Scope & Constraints
The brief: design a 7-screen mobile application in one week. That timeline shaped every decision. With only seven screens to work with, the product couldn't try to do everything pregnancy apps typically do. The constraint forced a sharp scope around community instead of medical or tracking features.
Additional constraints:
- Mobile-only
- Concept-stage
- Solo designer
5 · Process & What I Did
Competitive analysis — 9 feature categories
I audited the most popular pregnancy apps and mapped their features into 9 categories. The audit confirmed that most apps invested in pregnancy tracking and content, while lacking inbestment in peer connection.
We chose to focus on the community-driven categories (highlighted in pink) because that was the clear gap in the baby-app landscape.
Sketching
I sketched possibilities for the app layout, intentionally drawing from patterns women already understand from other community-driven apps. Feed and group structure from Reddit, direct messaging patterns from WhatsApp, and event browsing from Meetup.
Low & mid-fidelity wireframing
Wireframes translated the four chosen feature categories into concrete flows. Each of the 7 screens earned its place by mapping back to a need surfaced in the survey.
High-fidelity screens
The final design treats the home page like a content feed organized by groups joined, trending, and recommended. Discussions, groups, messages, and events are all reachable in one or two taps.
6 · Outcomes & Lessons
Key iteration
The earliest version of the events feature used a traditional calendar grid. Testing the design with quick walkthroughs surfaced that the dates were difficult to read and tap on mobile. I replaced the grid with a chronological list and an explicit filter for this week, this month, or all. This improved the usability for searching for events by date.
Lessons
A one-week sprint and a hard 7-screen ceiling narrowed the scope for features around the few things that mattered most to users.
The biggest lesson was about filling the gap for the user. I learned from the inital research what the users really wanted from a social media for expectant mothers. They wanted to feel supported and understood in their communities.
If I picked this back up, the obvious next chapter is postpartum continuity: members repeatedly said most apps stop talking to them right when they need community the most.