---
date: 2018-09-01
type: ship
title: Yesmom
slug: yesmom
project: Independent
kicker: A fertility and pregnancy companion that turned health data into daily reassurance.
excerpt: Designed against the dashboard-and-streak conventions of health apps. Sensitive medical content, soft structure, language that informed without pressuring.
cover: /assets/covers/hero-yesmom.webp
palette:
  accent: "#B97A75"
  source:
    brand: "Caran d'Ache"
    name: "Antique Pink"
  role: Senior Product Designer
  pull: A health companion isn't a dashboard. It's something you trust enough to open on a difficult morning.
tags: [healthcare, mobile, consumer, trust]
---

Yesmom is a fertility and pregnancy tracking companion. The brief wasn't ambitious in feature count; it was ambitious in tone. Most health apps overwhelmed users with numbers, notifications, and gamified streaks. The goal was a product that supported, informed, and reassured without ever pressuring.

## Context

Designing for sensitive health data means balancing clinical accuracy with emotional intelligence. The app had to handle private information, follow medical guidance, and remain trustworthy across very different life moments: trying to conceive, early pregnancy, loss, recovery.

## What I designed

The interaction model and the daily rhythm. Research with users in active fertility and pregnancy phases showed that visual tone mattered as much as flow. Engagement went up when the interface felt calm and predictable. Patterns followed: gentle transitions, language that informed without prescribing, screens that gave enough information to guide and never enough to overwhelm.

![Yesmom pregnancy-mode confirmation modal on a soft mint background. A teal circle with a white embryo glyph caps a rounded white card. Inside the card, a teal headline reads "Congratulations!" followed by body copy: "With activating pregnancy mode, a countdown to the birth of the baby will be shown instead of cycle predictions." Beneath it, a quiet question reading "Activate pregnancy mode?" and a single teal pill button "Yes, I am pregnant.", with a small grey secondary action "Wrong alert. Cancel." underneath.](/assets/projects/yesmom/ym-pregnancy-mode.webp)

## The trade-off

Conventional engagement design (daily streaks, progress badges, push notifications nudging the user to log) would have driven retention metrics up. In a fertility context, those mechanics can be actively painful: a streak break after a loss, a notification on the wrong day. We chose the softer system: optional reminders, no streaks, no shame in skipping. Slower curves in exchange for a product users could keep open during difficult chapters.

![Yesmom "Reminder Settings" screen on iPhone, captured against a pale teal halo. A close button sits top-left, the title centred. Three reminder groups stack down the screen, each row split between label and an iOS-style toggle: Period set on, with a "Notification" sub-row reading "2 Days Before · 11PM"; Period Late set off; Before Fertile Window set on, with the same "2 Days Before · 11PM" notification; Ovulation Day set on, with another "2 Days Before · 11PM" sub-row. No counters, badges or streaks: just optional, named reminders the user can switch off without penalty.](/assets/projects/yesmom/ym-reminder-settings.webp)

## What it changed

Launched as a trusted companion app. Users reported stronger emotional connection compared to typical health apps and used it as part of an actual routine rather than abandoning it after the first month. The design proved that precision and empathy are not a trade-off; both ship together when the product is opinionated about how it asks for trust.

## Role

Senior Product Designer. Worked closely with content and clinical partners to align guidance with user behaviour.