Menstrual Empowerment APP
May 2023 - Present
Background
As a menstruator, I’ve experienced the stigma surrounding the menstrual experience firsthand. Menstruators often experience period shame as they navigate mood changes, physical pain, and personal hygiene needs during their periods. I became eager to change the narrative around the menstruator experience and better understand menstruator needs. As a software engineer who menstruates, I realized I am in a unique position to drive meaningful impact on this issue. This project focuses on empowering menstruators during their periods so that they feel better understood and supported.
Skills: Coding / UX Design / UI Design / Design Thinking
Tools: XCode / Swift / SwiftUI / Miro
Empathize
I started by researching the menstruation landscape to better understand menstrual health, stigma, and shame. Some key statistical findings are below:
58% of women have felt a sense of embarrassment simply because they were on their period
73% of women have hid a pad/tampon from view on their way to the bathroom
62% of women claim that they have experienced others failing to take their period pain seriously
42% of women have experienced period shaming (1 in 5 experienced a negative comment from a male friend)
From Menstrual Hygiene Day: https://menstrualhygieneday.org/nearly-half-us-women-experienced-period-shaming/
I proceeded to interview five menstruators in my personal network, ranging in ethnicity, upbringing, sexual orientation, profession, and lifestyle. I asked each of them a series of six questions to understand their menstrual background, pain points, and needs while on their period.
My user interviews supported my research findings and shed light on some personal experiences related to menstrual stigma and shame. Some notable quotes from my interviews are below:
"I feel like society views periods as a hush-hush type of thing, as a taboo thing, as a weakness."
"It's very private. Girls talk about periods but families don't talk about periods. Friends who are boys and girls don't talk about periods."
"Periods should be cared for like you’re sick but not talked about like that or frowned upon."
"I would love for the conversation to be around empowering women and understanding women and what they go through."
Define
I proceeded to group my empathy interview findings into common themes in light pink, pain points in orange, and potential solutions in purple. Common themes included period symptoms, hygiene pain points, menstrual product accessibility, and period shame and stigma.
After sifting through insights, it became apparent that menstrual awareness, empathy, and education both inside and outside of the menstruator community were top pain points. This led me to the following problem statement:
How might we empower menstruators on their periods to help normalize the menstrual experience?
Ideate
I generated a list that addresses how menstruators want to feel on their periods. I then brainstormed ideas which would help menstruators feel supported in each of these areas. My ideas focused on symptom relief information, question/answer forums, and finding community.
The app design has four main views to help menstruators embrace their period needs and normalize their experiences shown below:
Progress: Manage progress towards personal menstrual care goals
Statistics: View personal statistics and recommendations for improved care
Community: Ask and answer questions in a community forum
Profile: Define a menstruator profile to personalize your app experience
Menstrual empowerment can occur in many settings, so I brainstormed a diverse range of avenues to begin normalizing the menstruator experience. Menstrual empowerment begins with conversations, forming community, and educational resources, and it has a wider impact with organizational support through partnerships and policy action.
Conclusion: Menstrual empowerment is best tackled in phases. While many menstrual apps provide solutions for period and fertility tracking, they do not provide tools to address menstruator needs on their periods. However, menstruators can easily leverage an app to take actionable first steps towards menstrual empowerment, including managing their menstrual care needs, finding educational resources, and forming a digital community.
Prototype
App Design:
I chose to build the app in XCode which allows users to write, debug, and test code in a single interface. I leveraged the Swift coding language and SwiftUI framework. SwiftUI provides a great toolkit for:
Designing clean iOS apps
Building accessible app experiences
Achieving cross-platform compatibility across Apple devices
App Implementation:
The video (1 min) below showcases the current development state of the app. Users are able to select their personal menstrual care goals, view a summary of their progress, and edit their menstruator profiles.
Future App Development Plans
Complete Progress View Point System: Allow users to dynamically see category item selections reflection in progress bar percentages
Develop Statistics Feature: Allow users to improve their menstrual care routine with personalized recommendations
Connect App to the Cloud: Allow users to ask and answer questions related to their menstrual needs in real time
Link App to Apple Health Tracking: Allow users to link their menstrual app data to the iOS health app for fitness, energy, and nutrition statistics and insights during menstruation
Test
I am currently working to complete the minimum viable product (MVP), including numbers 1, 2, and 3 in the future app development plans above. Once I complete these features, I plan to test the user experience with my five menstruator interviewees for intuitiveness, utility, opportunities for improvement, and new feature ideas. More to come soon! :)
Learnings-To-Date
Give the Define phase adequate time. Data alone yields potential. Data categorized in logical ways provides actionable insights.
Practice multiple forms of ideation. Approaching a problem statement from different angles produces more ideas and a greater surface for impact.
One project can require many design methods. App design is critical and designing a modular code structure for app development is just as critical.