MoM

"MoM" was a team challenge at the Apple Developer Academy, built by a team of six. It is an iOS app aimed at helping new mothers rebuild a movement habit after giving birth, designed around short sessions that fit into the day of a stressed and busy mother. I worked on this project as both a developer and the project manager.

The role

On the development side I contributed to the SwiftUI implementation of the app. As Project Manager, I ran the schedule and the team's decision-making, but a big part of the role was making sure everyone had a chance to contribute. With six people bringing different perspectives and ideas, I had to facilitate discussions, make sure quieter voices were heard, and create an environment where people felt their ideas were valued.

Staying with the user

Another part of my role was keeping the team grounded in who we were actually building for. We used our user personas to question our decisions throughout the project: would this actually help a new mother, and would she realistically use it in her day? This meant cutting ideas we personally liked when we realised they added complexity without making the experience better for our users.

What the interviews changed

User interviews reinforced this throughout the project. We often came into discussions with assumptions about what new mothers needed, only to have those assumptions challenged by what real mothers told us. Those conversations changed the direction of our decisions and reminded us that our understanding of a problem is not the same as the user's experience of it.

What I learnt

MoM taught me that building an app that genuinely empowers people is often about what you choose to leave out.

Good ideas are easy to become attached to, but creating with empathy means being willing to cut them when they don't serve the user. As a team, we learned to lead with the user rather than our own ideas, and for me, that became one of the most important lessons from the project.