Brella
Brella, a fast-scaling LA-based child care company, envisioned a mobile app that gave parents a richer, more flexible experience in scheduling childcare by the hour, as well as admin and front desk software to manage, monitor, and run their centers.
CHALLENGE
SOLUTION
With smart UX, we camouflaged the complexity of by-the-hour booking and Brella’s proprietary availability and cost models into a simple and delightful experience for parents and managers alike. To make pick-ups and drop-offs secure without making them burdensome, we injected some fun into a process that usually feels like red tape.
RESULTS
Brella’s app makes it easier to be a parent. With integrated software for teachers, front desk staff, and admin teams, the app unites the entire continuum of child care.
Brella is changing how child care works.
We’ve taken the best of high-quality, center-based child care and made it flexible. Now you can design your own schedule and pay by the hour. It’s child care that’s responsive - not restrictive.
Melanie Wolff and Darien Williams opened their state-of-the-art flagship Brella location in Playa Vista, Los Angeles, in the fall of 2019, are in the process of expanding to two new locations also in LA.
We worked with Brella to design and build a first-of-its kind mobile app for child care booking and safe pickups that would feel like a natural extension of their physical space, as well as custom web applications with front desk, administrative, and teacher functions. We wanted to be sure that every digital touchpoint with Brella demonstrated the same level of intention, care and quality that Melanie and Darien put into all elements of the Brella experience.
DEVICEProductivityEnterpriseIOSAndroidWeb ApplicationDirect-to-ConsumerChildrenFamiliesREACT NATIVEOne of our main challenges was to enable users to book by-the-hour child care for multiple children, as well as by-the-hour conference rooms or desks, and to optionally reserve one or more spaces at a community event — all in one step. We achieved this with a matrix of dots that appear in a gentle cascade, and by applying color language and simple visual haptics to communicate function.
Our second challenge was to ensure safe pickups in a drop-in child care situation where parents and other trusted contacts might not be already familiar to the front desk staff, and to do this in an efficient and unique way that is aligned with the Brella brand. We created a variety of safety steps, including real-time parent invites, phone number and photo verification, GPS location verification, and the ability for parents to easily modify pickup permissions at any time through the app. We designed the experience to bring joy and delight so that it didn’t feel like red tape: With one tap of “I’m here!”, we verify location and user identity, then generate a time-limited, random “secret password” from our word vault, which we had a lot fun creating. Some recent favorite secret passwords: “Tiny Magical Forest” “Red Marshmallow Rainboots” “Fancy Rainbow Pickle”. The safe pickup verification process can take less than two seconds and leaves parents smiling.
Brella’s web applications are equally bespoke.
We designed versions for front desk staff to manage bookings and check-ins and -outs; a teacher app for teachers to see who’s in their classroom hour-by-hour and get useful details like allergies and the child’s favorite things; and an administrative app to manage hours and users, create promotions, and run reports, among other features. This project is ongoing as we learn and iterate post-opening, observing real usage patterns on site and noting areas where we can add even more efficiency and ease for staff and parents.
It’s a pleasure partnering with Melanie and Darien, and we hope you’ll visit them with your little ones in Playa Vista! I’ve added some photos of their gorgeous space below.
What we delivered
DESIGN
Created easy-to-use, delightful and on-brand user experience for child onboarding, identity verification, booking and pickups
Interface design utilizing existing brand strategy in partnership with Project M+
UX/UI design for parent-facing mobile apps on iOS and Android
UX/UI design for pick-up apps on iOS and Android
UX/UI design for Front Desk, Administrative and Teacher apps for responsive web
MOBILE TECH STACK
React Native
Typescript
React Query
Redux
React Native Reanimated
Appcenter CI/CD
Appcenter Codepush
React-native-firebase
React Navigation V6
Stripe (CC, ACH, Klarna) // payments
React-native-calendars
DEVELOPMENT
Iterative, agile development process with focus on fast releases to bring solutions live for customers asap
Team of four developers focusing on markup, front end, back end, and mobile
Dedicated project manager and quality assurance (QA) specialist
Continued iteration and development of new features
BACKEND TECH STACK
Nest.js // framework
MongoDB (+ Mongoose) // mongoose - ODM
Stripe( CC, ACH, Klarna ) // payments
AWS s3 // storage
Swagger // API documentation
JWT, passport, argon2 // Auth
Twilio // 2FA
Mailchimp // marketing
CRON // scheduler
Mailgun // mailing
Eslint, Prettier // linter, code formatter
FRONTEND TECH STACK
Angular v15 // Web application development framework
ng-bootstrap v14 //Angular UI components library
Bootstrap v4 // CSS framework for styling
D3 v7 // Data visualization library
Rxjs v7 // Reactive programming for JavaScript
CORE FEATURES
Parent app: Register and update child profiles; book child care, workspaces and events in one, 3-step workflow; notifications at pickup times and safe pickup workflow with time-limited secret passwords; identity and gps verification; buy and manage child care plans; manage profile; manage safe pickups and edit permissions in real time
Pickup app: Accept and deny safe pickup invites; notifications at pickup times and safe pickup workflow with time-limited secret passwords; identity and GPS verification
Teacher app: View children in classroom with potty training status and allergies at-a-glance and by hour + full child profiles with a click: separation experience, favorite things, food preferences, and others
Front desk app: Check children in and out of child care safely; check parents in and out of workspaces and events; manage accounts; make bookings and manage payments; Stripe integration and point-of-sale; and others
Administrative app: Manage all administrative functions of center, including bookings, accounts, staff permissions and promotion codes, accounting and KPI tracking; run custom reports
