People with periods need access to education about the four phases of the menstrual cycle and how they affect other aspects of their health such as sleep, diet, fitness, and mental health. Utilizing the knowledge of the physical and emotional changes people experience during their cycle will allow women to optimize the different phases to better manage a healthier lifestyle.
Key: green checkmark: yes, dollar sign: with subscription, orange: partially, red: no
Apps from right to left: Flo Period Tracker and Calendar, Clue Period and Cycle Tracker, Period Tracker by GP Apps, Apple Health
The apps were chosen based on app store reviews and which apps our interviewees use. It was a trend amongst all the apps to collect a lot of data about symptoms and other measures of health or fitness. The collecting of this information seems to only be for the purposes of tracking when or how often it occurs and does not use this data to provide any suggestions to the user. The only app that currently tracks all 4 phases is Flo, but the tracking of the luteal and follicular phases are minimal, not done automatically, and only accessible with a subscription. This competitive audit showed the lack of free and comprehensive information about women’s health. Since most of the apps require paid features, it seems unrealistic to create a comprehensive and completely free app. An alternative could be paid subscriptions, but only in addition to the option of watching ads in order to access all the app's features. This would allow for more people to have ease of access to this information.
This alternative screen displays the information about the phase insights questions one at a time as a pop-up box versus getting an entirely new page with lots of information. This alternative was made so that users wouldn’t be overwhelmed by all the information at once and could get the answer for only the question they clicked. Ideally, the original screen would still be accessible by clicking the main circle on the home page since it reads learn more versus a specific question, but the new alternative would appear only when clicking a specific phase insights button/question.
As stated earlier, the insights page was changed to this style from our original flow 1. Due to this change, it was necessary to expand the section to include more than just the user’s current cycle phase. The new page on the left allows users to select the phase which they want to learn about. This leads them to the phase specific page (which is the middle screen) and features information on the 4 categories(Mood, Sleep, Fitness, Diet) for the selected phase. Once users select a category they want to learn about within the phase they selected, the application will take them to the 3rd screen on the right. The last screen features an in depth explanation on the category/phase selected.
The participants provided meaningful feedback about the intuition of the flows we presented, as well as aesthetic suggestions. For example, we got a range of opinions on presenting information through flip-able cards versus blocks of text. 2/4 of our interviewees noted that the content about each phase was very useful and digestible, however one participant noted that presenting the information as blocks of text made this screen overwhelming. The general consensus was that most interviewees preferred the flip-able cards to present information, as this made our flow more interactive and visually appealing while breaking up large portions of information. The biggest insight was the intuition of the colors. 2/4 interviewees noted that they immediately associated the pink days with menstrual days, but were not as quick to identify the other phases by color. To mitigate this, we decided to add an information icon on the calendar screen to present a color key for the phases on the calendar. The insights - phases (screen 9) now shows each phase name in their respective color. After clicking a phase, the following page will display the health categories in a gradient of what ever color the phase was, in this case, purple for follicular phase.
Overall, I learned a lot from this project making sure to follow an iterative design process in which changes are made based on either research or feedback in order to continue improving and attempting to eliminate personal bias. One thing I took away from this process it how to redesign while maintaining the original apps branding. I had never redesigned an already existing app, so I had to conform to the original standards to maintain consistency and the feeling that this is simply a new extension of the app. While we made many changes and added new pages, when compared to the original, it is easy to see that its an expansion of it.
Looking back at this final prototype, I am excited to see how much we accomplished and how it truly reflects our original problem statement. From our initial user research, it was obvious there was a gap in knowledge about the various phases people with periods go through every cycle seeing as only 2/10 interviewees could name them. None of the period apps on the market provided information about all 4 phases, except 1 behind a pay wall. Both the lack of the knowledge itself and its accessibility show how some of the additions we made can truly inform people and improve their overall health.
