Project Brief
This project began with an open-ended brief to design a solution for any single problem that you see around you. After thinking about various different problems, I realized that I had one, very frustrating issue right in front of me. Something that not only me, but millions of women have to face. This made me land on the domain of health and wellbeing, specifically for women.
Understanding the Domain
Women’s health is a topic that is extremely complex and is dependent on a host of factors. When you say women’s health, most often people assume that it's simply reproductive health. Needless to say, it is one of the most talked-about topics of this domain.
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Although reproductive health, in particular related to maternal health and reproductive tract infections, is recognized as a health priority in developing countries, much less attention is paid to menstrual health and menstrual disorders.
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Menstruation is a monthly challenge for billions of women and girls worldwide. On any given day, more than 800 million girls and women between the ages of 15 and 49 are menstruating.
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Statistics and Facts :-
Brainstorming and Keyword Mapping
After extensive secondary research on the topic of women’s well-being, I began putting down ideas and words by creating rough mindmaps and making a list of keywords. This was at a very nascent phase, which resulted in a very wide scope for the solution. I wanted to cater to the entire aspect of women’s well being which included health and women’s safety. The initial plan was to come up with a solution that could tackle both issues.
Scope
To gain a little more depth about the domains, I also conducted a literature review and analyzed multiple articles and papers. This made me realize that combining both the issues in one solution would prove to be very challenging and also I needed to narrow down my scope considering the project timeline.
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The problem statement -
Today's women need a gender-specific, exclusively designed, and curated solution in their daily lives that will mainly focus on the issues relating to women's reproductive and sexual health, as well as their safety and wellbeing which will work towards a better lifestyle.
Users and Audience
Of course, if we think about the women that face the most challenges regarding health and well-being, the answer would be rural women. However, since I had decided on this problem by looking at the issues that I and the women around me face, it made sense to keep them as my target user groups.
Target Audience - Urban Women between ages 15-55
USER RESEARCH
After finalizing my target audience, it was time to validate my hypotheses regarding the challenges that they face in day-to-day life. I decided to go ahead with a user survey allowing the users to be more candid as it would be completely anonymous.
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Survey Method - Online Form
Sample Size - 40 users
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The age groups who participated in the survey were mostly young women from the age 16-30.
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There was an equal balance between the women who were health-conscious and the ones who weren’t. The same percentage of women surprisingly were unsure about the answer.
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Moving toward questions about their sexual life, about 40% of women were sexually active as compared to the 60 who were not.
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Half the women surveyed had never in their life visited a gynecologist. This shows that they don’t feel the need to get regularly checked. Only about 20% of women were regularly visiting the doctor.
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25% of women said they use birth control pills that can affect the body and disrupt the regular cycle. 17 women said that they use no protection which indicates a high chance of unwanted pregnancies.
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50% of the women said they had never used a tracking app for anything which means they were unaware of their monthly cycles and ovulation dates.
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The most sought-after features in the solution were exact period date prediction, health insights, and instant supplies delivery followed by a ‘pregnancy chance’ indicator, emergency medical advice, and body sensor for accuracy.
Process
PERSONAS
Based on the user research conducted, I created two user personas to better understand the needs and pain points of my target user. Out of the two, I decided to focus on the first one as it was based on the actual users living around me and I could utilize that to build a better product.
Solution Concepts
After gathering and analyzing insights from the user survey, I start conceptualizing solutions that would aim to solve the derived problem statement. Both of them inclined towards the smart sensor technology domain but both had very different use cases.
Wearable Smart Watch/Bracelet
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The product will be a wearable smart watch that will be specially curated for the target audience i.e. female audiences. It will have special features like :
•Menstruation Tracker
•Fitness
•Pregnancy chance
•Health Insights
•Instant Delivery​
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The product will be a specifically curated wearable device that will cater to the female audiences. It will have multiple functions, some including the basic fitness and activity tracking, alarms and reminders etc as well as some exclusive features like menstrual cylce tracking and prediction
Sensor based sanitary napkins or menstrual cups
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Will detect flow, predict ovulation dates, sense symptoms and abnormalities etc
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Supporting application needed
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Reusable technology
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Will notify when full and give cycle insights
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Might have scope to detect cervical cancer as well.
COMPETITOR BENCHMARKING
After careful thinking, I decided to go ahead with the first concept as it was the more feasible and sensible option considering the target user group’s mental model. To further detail the features and use cases of the product I was developing, I needed to first study the existing solutions in the market in order to make sure I wasn’t making a redundant solution.
1. Technology-Based
2. Sensor-based
3. Menstrual cycle tracking
4. Supporting Mobile Application
5. 95% Accuracy
COMMON FEATURES
1. Use of natural energy
2. Emergency Medical Advice
3. Voice/ Gesture-Based
4. Fertility window
ADDITIONAL FEATURES
DESIGN STRATEGY
Once the research stage was complete, I decided to put down my design strategy. This helped me have a clear direction in terms of the general tasks and business goals of my solution.
USER JOURNEY
The next step in my process was to envision the process and touchpoints that the user would have while interacting with my product. This helped me gain valuable insights and optimize the experience accordingly.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Based on the user journey and touchpoints, I could start visualising the user task flows which then provided me a base to design the information architecture of my product.
PROTOTYPING
After finalising the IA, it was easier for me to make a consolidated list of screens and interactive flows that I would need to design. Once that was done, I started with rapid low fidelity prototyping using paper sketches. These sketches were great to make options and easy iterations.
WIREFRAMES
The best outcomes were then converted to digital wireframes.
Outcome
USER INTERFACE
After multiple iterations in the prototyping stage, I had in place a quite clear structure and skeleton of the application. The next step was to develop the entire theme and style guide which would ultimately decide the look and feel of my solution. Before actually devising it, I looked at many different applications to get inspiration.
For my color scheme, I wanted it to be young and lively but also comforting and sober. For the typography, I chose Poppins as it is a very versatile and inviting font.
For the UI components, I made them relatively larger and bolder given that this was going to be used on a very small screen.
STYLE GUIDE & UI COMPONENTS
NAVIGATION
HIGH FIDELITY USER TESTING
With the high-fidelity prototype ready, it was time to validate my design decisions. I went ahead with summative testing with a limited number of real users. To actually decide the users, I also created a test screener document.
To gain elaborate feedback, I also created a task script document which consisted of the various tasks they were given, a few pre-test and post-test questions.
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Like any other usability test, there was both positive and negative feedback. The positive findings helped me validate many of my design decisions whereas the negative findings helped me iterate and improve my designs.
A few of the main iterations included increasing the clickable area sizes, rethinking the visual hierarchy, adding images for visual key. One other additional feature of medical advice chat was added based on user’s suggestions.
Final Solution
01.
Profile : Personal and Health
This screen shows the basic information about the user and further divulges into personal and medical information.
This screen comes after selecting the edit option and lets the user select their condition if they are suffering from any. This inturn helps in giving more accurate results and curated insights.
02.
Period Tracker
The smart sensors of the watch detect the body symptoms of the user and can give an accurate prediction of their next period date.
This screen is a monthly calender which shows the period dates , ovulation dates etc. Symptoms can be added and they will reflect in the calender.
Many factors play a role in a woman’s menstrual cycle. The app lets you add them and accordingly edits the results.
03.
Pregnancy Chance Indicator
This screen shows the chance of pregancy for any particular date in the monthly cycle. This can help the user make better informed decisions
04.
Delivery
The user can avail instant delivery of products that can be needed in of products that can be needed in case of emergency.
User can select choice of product, quantity and preferred address. With a minimal delivery fee, one can get instant deliveries at doorstep through partner shop tie-ups.
05.
Medical Advice and Insights
The user can call or chat with the assigned doctors under various specializations.
Insights curated as per user’s health profile are shown on this screen. These can help the user gain a better understanding about their bodies and health.
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