Prototyping and evaluating a digital platform to manage unexpected pregnancy

The situation

Avail NYC, a New York-based non-profit offering care for those facing unexpected pregnancies, approached us to improve their reach to people in need. The client’s existing support model was designed to empower confident and informed decision-making in a moment that is deeply personal and emotionally complex and was highly high-touch. However, people who visited its online presence found limited information, little interactive support, and no structure to guide them through informed choices while preserving privacy. The main research question was the following: how might we make digital care more accessible, reduce stress, and close knowledge gaps while protecting privacy and supporting informed, autonomous decisions?

My role, team and responsibilities

I was the UX research lead for this project and teamed up with a UX designer and a content designer. On the client side, we worked with the main sponsor and three other stakeholders/advisers in the field of wellbeing and healthcare. Our goal was to offer digital solutions that would support our target audience throughout their journey - from coping, to learning, to making the right decisions against their context. My specific focus, besides leading, was to gather deep, honest, and actionable insights from user testing with participants, and to translate them into design recommendations that would safeguard emotional safety and strengthen user trust.

First research-informed ideas and concepts

My team and I reviewed research we previously conducted with the client to ensure we understood our target audience the best way possible. We then proposed ideas and concepts to our client and brainstormed together to narrow down the best potential solutions. Four specific solutions were retained:

1. Journaling: the need to self reflect and process emotions after learning about the pregnancy was needed especially for women. However, most didn't have the tools nor guidance to do it properly or at all.

2. Discovery: there was a need to get educated about pregnancy and the different options that are available during the journey. Our research suggested it applies mostly to men, who are trying to become a supportive asset to their partner while they process their emotions.

3. Crisis messaging: in some cases, our research showed that some people, especially women, go through an emotional rush right after they learn about the pregnancy. In this moment, especially when their partner is not as present, the need to feel supported becomes imperative.

4. Community: as people go through this intense journey, feeling validated, or not feeling alone, is becoming very important. 

With these ideas we intended to meet the emotional and informational needs of the users. However, before these ideas could be matured into a trustworthy product, they needed to be tested for relevancy, tone, and emotional impact.

Prototyping selected design solutions

Our team needed to ensure these ideas were not only functional, but truly resonated with individuals (both women and men) who had gone through the experience of an unexpected pregnancy. The first step was to turn these ideas into prototypes. You will find below key screenshots of the four solutions we selected.

Journaling prototype

Journaling offered personalized guidance and associated planning. Journaling sessions aimed to support users with self-reflection and included open-ended prompts, metaphor-based emotion elicitation, meditation sessions and post-session check-in.

Discovery prototype

Discovery was focused on educating users and providing them with the needed knowledge and tools to make informed decisions about their situation. Just like journaling, it proposed a personalized, guided plan of action and included bite-sized articles about various topics.

Crisis messaging prototype

The crisis messaging concept was prototyped both in a desktop and mobile format. It featured a high-touch approach with the simulation of an Avail employee answering questions or managing users' racing thoughts via semi-crafted or manual responses, based on context.

Community prototype

Finally, community offered stories in different formats from women and men who experienced unexpected pregnancy. It also included the ability to create your own story, or even to join a virtual room to interact users in similar situations.

The impact of testing with relevant users

I led user-facing testing sessions with 20 participants (10 women and 10 men), spanning diverse ages, ethnicities, and lived experiences. These included those who had recently gone through an abortion, and those whose partners had. The sessions included task-based activities, guided walkthroughs and follow-up conversations to gather overall feedback.

One core design dilemma surfaced from the synthesis of all these sessions: how do we create safe connection without compromising privacy? How do we balance emotional honesty with the risk of triggering or overwhelming users?

In addition, these insights allowed us to transform assumptions into refined design directions:

• We uncovered strong needs for male-focused content, revealing a huge gap in abortion-related resources for men.

• We redefined our understanding of tone in emotionally sensitive contexts: warm, non-judgmental, but never “too positive” or “too branded.”

• We recommended creating multi-modal content—audio, transcript, chat, and visuals—so users could choose their preferred way of engaging with the platform.

• Most importantly, we emphasized emotional safety as a product feature, not just a byproduct of design.

Our work led to tangible shifts in content structure, onboarding flow, visual identity, and moderation protocols. We also decided to prioritize our next efforts toward the journaling and the discovery features as they impacted users the most against their needs. By staying close to users’ lived experiences, we helped our client design not just a tool, but a safe and resonant space.

My next efforts included translating our research insights into an actual product to be launched. Continuous discussions with the developing team were necessary to ensure the final experience (relevancy, tone of voice, feeling of safety) closely matched what we learned and recommended.

The impact of the final product: betterclarity

(Stats collected in Q1 of 2024)