What if women could be more in touch with their menstrual cycle ? This question is the starting point of a 10 weeks project which would allowed me to validate my Human Interaction Design Certificate on Coursera.
Let me take you through the process of prototyping an app !
The first and maybe more important step was to go through the design brief and chose an issue to work on. I really had to be convinced and passionate about it, as I knew I would have spent a high workload and time on it during more than two month.
Luckily, it was very inspiring, and some design inspirations especially caught my eyes:
- What if our mobiles were aware of our daily rhythm and helped us reschedule our activities to optimize for our well-being?
- How might we leverage technology to feel more in touch with our temporal rhythms?
- How might we help people feel happy and energetic.
An idea popped in my head: how women could live more in agreement with their menstrual cycle, which has a big impact on their level of energy through the month ?
- User observation and needfinding
The first 2 weeks were dedicated to needfinding. I observed and interviewed a few women about their habits concerning how they organize their time, regarding to their period.
My observation centered around how women do keep track of their cycle and how they schedule their activities regarding their cycle on short or long time.
This led to some interesting breakthrough and design opportunities
- tracking app is checked several time during the cycle mostly for the exact same goal: checking the date of the next period
- users are often surprised or unaware of the arriving of their period (even for those who use a period tracking app)
- users often juggle with to many tools to schedule and organize day or week.
- user often forget to enter data on a daily basis in their period tracking app
There is a lack of feedback about data entered related to menstrual cycle
adjusting a sport schedule regarding to the menstrual cycle can be hard (as the period tracking app and the calendar are not linked)
Working on these results I brainstormed on specific opportunities for design innovation and insightful opportunities. Here are a few of them:
- Women need a way to feel empowered by what is happening in their body.
- Women need a way to be able to have a clearer view of where they are in their cycle on a daily basis.
- Women need to be able to efficiently enter information about the daily changes they experience
- Women need a way to organise their time without having to use too many tools.
2.Women need a way to visualise in a glance all relevant information about their day including their menstrual cycle status.
I finally came with the specific point of view which would guide me during the rest of the process
My goal was for women to embrace their menstrual cycle instead of suffering of it.
The design will focus on helping them to organise better depending on their energy level by allowing them to be more aware of their menstrual cycle status and what it implies in term of mood or energy on a daily basis.
2. First prototypes and first tests.
After working on a few storyboard, I could start making the first paper prototype. At this point I wasn’t sure which functionalities I should focus on but I wanted to work on a home page like a dashboard. I came with some concepts.
- A home page displaying both period information and information about your day (weather, agenda)
- An easy way to track your symptoms, all in one page
- A way to visualize your past cycle and symptom.
The firsts test were really instructive.
The one to one test gave me immediately some insight about the errors in my design. I also was able to get enthusiastic reaction, interesting feedbacks and ideas. This step was really precious. I wish I had more time to iterate at this stage.
Regarding the heuristic test, it gave me more fine tune and professional feedback.
Confronting our work with users and with peer are both really complementary.
What I learned at this stage:
- The tracking system of my second prototype was more clear and efficient
- I could combine informations of both prototype home page
3. First mockup
Here is the first mockup I came with after the prototyping stage. I wasn’t able to address all problems identified but done is better than perfect and I was able to go on with further testing.
As you can see the home page is more advanced but there were still some problems
- Tracking button wasn’t enough visible for the user
- Navigation was still difficult between screens. I had to create a menu.
- Some functions were missing, like a more classical calendar view.
- Information on the home page were appreciated, but all it was a littlest cluttered.
Thanks to an A/B test, I was more sure about my navigation choice.
Last but not least, I went through all the test phases in wireframe mode, but I had to design the layout and UI of each screen for the last step.
4. Final version
And here come the last version of my prototype. Meet Mona.
On of my stretch goal during the last 4 weeks was to work on a visual identity for my app. While I didn’t have the time to finish it, I came with colors I wanted to use.
As you see, this final prototype address my design goal and point of view.
Women can see in a glance information about their day, including their period. They can switch to a 7 days or a mont view to have insight about what is coming next regarding their level of energy.
Home page is decluttered but information are easily available by a simple clic
Women are aware of the symptoms they could feel and the activities they could enjoy doing, and can compare them to what they have plan for the day.
They also can visualize their past cycle and check for pattern, allowing them to be more aware.
Of course, it’s far from a finalized app, but I’m really glad with how it turned out. I know I will continue to work on this project, and hopefully, having it developped.
You can see it in action in the video I made for the last assignment week (using free videos and free music… not so bad I guess !)
Thank you for reading ! And stay in touch if you want to get fresh news about this project.