Brella

OVERVIEW

Brella is an on-demand childcare facility that allows parents to schedule and manage pickups and drop offs on a flexible schedule with an app. I interviewed a few patrons of the service and found there is difficulty in scheduling recurring days and times with the booking feature.

I am in the middle of researching contemporaries and other similar scheduling apps to make Brella’s booking experience for flexible times and multiple days simple and quick to understand.

Team: Ena Tioseco, Case Study, ongoing

Learning about Brella

Born of a desire to create a community and learning environment that nurtures development from infancy to kindergarten, Brella has a library, an art lab, a playground, a garden, and a nursery for the tiniest members. There’s even an area where parents can work, take calls or meetings, or grab a latte while the kids play. Brella is next-level in the childcare world: Beyond providing snacks and diaper changes, it actively works to educate families throughout their children’s development. Also worth checking out: The affordable classes on everything from nursing to sleep training to setting limits.

Finding a great place is not easy because of the many things to consider - programs and curriculums, environment, facilities, teacher student ratio and interactions etc. Signing up with a daycare is also has its challenges with waitlists that can last up to years.

Brella is a full service, child-centered daycare that allows parents to book and pay by the hour or schedule in advance without any contracts or minimums. Parents can drop off their kids to run errands for a few hours or for a work day. Families book and manage their profile with the Brella App which contains all the information for the children including nap times, feeding schedules, favorite things and other details.

I used their app and dropped found some flaws in the booking experience.

the challenge

To create an in-app booking experience that accommodates recurring schedules and on-demand hours ranging from one to multiple individuals.

The experience in the Brella App works well for booking children one day at a time. If a parent needed to schedule for multiple days, or recurrences, they would need to go through the booking process through the meal selection and payment process multiple times. Since the app encourages clients to book times from their app, the booking experience needs to accommodate various scheduling needs.

Next steps

— Currently looking at other flexible / on demand daycares and booking services like MindBody, how they do booking and managing profile information to create an analysis.

— Set up an interview with employees about how they use their system.