About Parents Connect
We designed the web and mobile community platform for Parents Connect, a non-profit that supports parents around the world. It exists so parents get the education, support and resources their kids need to do well.
Our job was to turn that mission into one product where parents meet, swap what they know and grow a community that spans countries.
What we covered: discovery and stakeholder interviews, a product revamp, UX design, plus brand and visual design.
The problem we had to solve
The core problem was serving parents with very different backgrounds on one platform. To build a worldwide community, the product had three jobs:
- Close the digital gap. Confident and hesitant internet users both had to feel at home.
- Keep people coming back. A community only works when parents return, post and reply.
- Work for everyone. Country, language and device could not limit who joins.
How we designed it
We began with research on what parents want from an online community. Those findings shaped the discussion forums, the learning and inspiration content, and the spaces where parents talk, organized into five core experiences.
Video episodes with experts and real families
Parents watch short episodes that pair expert guidance with stories from other families.
Parents from every country
A parent in one city can discover and follow parents in any other.
Real-time chat for support
We added live messaging so parents can help each other in private threads or in groups.
Articles written by parenting experts
Experts post articles, and parents read them, react and talk them through.
Comments on everything
Reactions and comment threads make each article or webinar a discussion.
What we delivered
As a product design agency, we delivered a full community product for web and mobile with:
- navigation that new users understand without help
- content suggestions tailored to each parent
- forums where parents connect and ask for advice
- parenting content curated by experts
- a worldwide events calendar that gives members a reason to return
The community feed shows posts, who is online, the members directory and chats in a single screen.
The members directory lets a parent find others close by, filtered by distance or interest.
Mobile users get the same core flows: the member map, expert articles and chat.
The impact
The design gave Parents Connect a live platform that matches its vision. Parents worldwide now turn to it for support, and families feel the change:
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Forum participation among parents | +45% |
| Average time spent on the platform | +10% |
| Parents reporting positive change in their children | 20+ |
| Parents reporting more confidence in parenting | 40+ |
Planning a community product? Hire UI UX designers from our team to run the same research-first process.
