OWNA Childcare App 4+

First up I like this app and find it great to stay up to date with my child’s day. Lots of useful features and overall easy to use. There are few things which could be improved. The child sign in screen for instance could pre-fill the previous entered pickup time (userdefaults store could be used for that).

There is no loader or blocking screen when entering the sign in screen. Pressing signin multiple times, because the internet connection is slow opens the screen multiple times!

iPad has plenty of layout related issues when moving between landscape and portrait. The photo gallery doesn’t update properly. Videos can’t be swiped once the playing.

As a parent I find this app so difficult to navigate. There are so many folders and little buttons that take you to other menu’s and it’s all just a bit overwhelming. Information about just my child is difficult to find and I still haven’t worked out how to post a question or information to just my child’s caters rather than the main feed where all the families of the centre can see it. The selling and art/craft sections are somewhat handy but cannot work out how to filter to location with the selling/buying stuff (can filter to centre but their are other centres local to my area I might like to buy from). Also I don’t think that these features deserve pride and place on the app’s home page - they’re handy but I want to easily be able to click into my child’s profile etc rather than these features. I have used Storypark in the past and so far much prefer that. There are some great features on this app (being updated on sleep times, nappy changes, meals etc - being able to see the staff’s roster so you know who to expect at drop off/pick up is probably my favourite feature) but it’s just so confusing to navigate!!

I’m a first time mum so sending my child to kindy could be a bit distressing. With this app, I love the fact that I can keep tabs on my child, what he ate, how much and sleeping times. I also liked that I can checkout their roster to see who’s on for that day. Their daily posts and photos are very good too. I find the calendar useful as well so I can plan ahead if I need to get costumes etc for some of the events. The app does need a bit of playing with to get used to the interface but I find it easy to navigate anyway. It does sometimes lag with new posts that I guess can be fix with an update. Overall, I find the app very informative and useful. I can easily send a message to my child’s carer which is important for me. I can read all the progress notes as well and other documents in one place.