5 Minute Dad
An app to help expectant fathers prepare for parenthood.
5 minutes at a time.
There is no textbook for fatherhood, but 5 Minute Dad aims to be the next best thing. With pre-populated checklists, curated recommendations, evidence-based sources, and a routine-building core loop to help users through it all, 5 Minute Dad takes the stress out of preparing for parenthood.
Role
UX Designer
Platform
Android
Timeline
8 Weeks
Tools
Figma, Adobe CC
Project
Academic,
Individual
Problem Space
A new era of fatherhood
Context
Millennial Dads Have it Rough
While fatherhood is as ancient as humanity itself, the institution has undergone significant changes in recent years. The role has evolved from a stoic provider, protector, and disciplinarian into an equal caregiver for whom strictly gendered divisions of labour have fallen aside.
Three-quarters of new fathers in Canada are Millennials (now aged 27-42), and they have embraced – and driven – this changing Zeitgeist in parenting philosophy more so than any previous generation of dads.
Millennial dads face a double burden. They are doing 3 times more childcare and housework than past generations, and 9 in 10 feel pressure to be “the perfect dad.”
Struggling to balance this with traditional masculinity and work success takes a toll on their mental health: 1 in 3 dads feels overwhelmed, and they experience anxiety at rates 3-5 times higher than the average man.
Millennial dads are having a rough time.
How can I help them?
User Interviews
How are dads managing the process now?
To gain a more concrete human-centric understanding of the issue, I interviewed 5 Millennial dads with children aged 4 or younger. The age cut-off ensured that they were still able to remember all the details from the pregnancy.
Of the 100s of notes I extracted from the interviews, here are some examples of some key moments that I used to identify emergent themes:
