Case study:
Abbott – UX Design & Interactive App Development For Kids

Abbott Laboratories is an American global pharmaceuticals and healthcare products company. Motherapp works with Abbott–Hong Kong which is a leading provider of child healthcare products.

In Hong Kong, the child healthcare market is highly competitive. After talking to Abbott, we discovered there are already plenty of competitor apps vying for the attention of both parents and children. We needed to create an an app that was truly unique in this market space, that increased Abbott HK’s brand awareness, and most importantly, solved a critical problem for parents and kids.

We worked with the Abbott team to define the following business objectives for the app:

• Strengthen the Abbott brand as a reputable healthcare product provider
• Increase the level of awareness of the EyeQ Plus product line among parents
• Facilitate pre-school learning and education
• Foster parent-child relationship building

Then we applied User Analysis to uncover the parents’ unmet needs. We know that every parent wants their child to grow up healthy, happy and able to live up to their full potential in life. In Hong Kong, many parents believe that the first step is getting their child into a desirable but highly competitive kindergarten which could eventually lead to the right primary then secondary school.

We could have easily jumped to a conclusion and created a learning app to help parents to drill their child in a specific subject. Instead, we talked to the parents and discovered they were troubled by the fact that their children, who are always bright and responsive at home, turn into silent, unresponsive children when meeting teachers at kindergarten interviews.

Building on the insight we gained, we created a solution that enabled parents to better prepare their children to interview well with strangers. Inspired by FaceTime, we wanted to see if there was an opportunity to create a fun and educational experience by simulating FaceTime’s video chat in an interview. We devised a fun prototype session with parents and their children and found that by using the interview app, not only are children given exposure talking to different people, but parents have a lot of fun in the process as well.

As a result, we created the Abbott EyeQ Interview App with the following features:

• Simulated Video Chat Interviews: The app has a series of pre-recorded videos from different interviewers. Parents can use it to simulate the actual scenario when interacting with total strangers. To make the interview session more lively, parents can control when the interviewers give praise or prompt their children to respond.
• Wide Representation of Interviewers: Since the purpose of the app is for kids to get used to strangers, we have a wide selection of principals and teachers for parents to select. Children can practice the interview in Cantonese, English and Mandarin.
• Collecting and Sharing Fun Memories: The app features automatic video clip creation, making it easy for parents to save their kid’s practice interviews. To integrate with client’s marketing campaign, the app also allows parents to submit their favorite clips to potentially be shown on TV.