The Role of Support in Menstruation Apps
Overview
A generative study to investigate the role and facilitation of support in menstruation apps.
ROLE
I led all aspects of the research process including protocol development, synthesis and forming recommendations.
METHODS
Semi-structured Interviews
Co-design Workshops
TEAM
Casey Jabbour
Alexandra Kryzoziak
DURATION
10 Weeks
The Problem
In recent years, there has been controversy surrounding menstrual tracking applications. From their gendered designs and lack of support for edge cases to monetizing women’s private personal health data—there has been a call on the tech industry to make these apps better. While there has been a movement to streamline and de-gender the cluttered pink designs, my team felt there was still space to improve these applications especially for those with disruptive symptoms and reproductive disorders.
SECONDARY RESEARCH
Research team at UW found that apps had a lack of accuracy, and that the pink interface made users feel uncomfortable about opening them in public (Epstein et. al, 2017). Those applications that do (Glow and Clue) marginalize the health experiences of users that do not meet the applications assumptions of “womanhood,” namely, queer, unpartnered, infertile, and/or women uninterested in procreating (Tiffany, 2018)
Beyond these issues, menstruation is a widely stigmatized issue. It is a topic that tends discussed behind closed doors despite being a factor in the lives of individuals (Tiffany, 2018).
Epstein, D. A., Lee, N. B., Kang, J. H., Agapie, E., Schroeder, J., Pina, L. R., ... & Munson, S. (2017, May). Examining menstrual tracking to inform the design of personal informatics tools. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 6876-6888).
Tiffany, Kaitlyn. "Period-tracking apps are not for women." Vox, 18 Nov. 2018, www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/13/18079458/menstrual-tracking-surveillance-glow-clue-apple-health.
Tiffany, Kaitlyn. "Period-tracking apps are not for women." Vox, 18 Nov. 2018, www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/13/18079458/menstrual-tracking-surveillance-glow-clue-apple-health.
PHASE I RESEARCH
Research Objective
With this in mind, we aimed to understanding the motivations, needs, use cases and role of social support in the context of menstrual tracking for those with extreme symptoms.
MOTIVATIONS AND BEHAVIORS
How do people track their menstrual cycle?
Why is information important to them?
NEEDS AND USE CASES
What functions do users need from menstrual apps?
What types of information are most important for users of menstrual apps?
ROLE OF SOCIAL SUPPORT
How do others in users lives support their needs, how users communicate these needs?
The Study
Participants
N = 10.
Method
Sessions were completed in testing rooms on the UW campus. Each interview session lasted about 60 minutes and followed a standardized protocol to ensure consistency across participants.
Analysis
We used affinity diagramming and coding of our data in order to get our results.
Results
MOTIVATIONS & USE CASES
People who experience disruptive symptoms put a great deal of effort into mentally and physically preparing for their period. Knowing when their symptoms will come is important to this preparation process.
PAINPOINTS
Periods affect many aspects of the lives of individuals, but applications are stand alone and rarely integrated into their lives.
RELATIONSHIPS
Periods affect relationships in different ways. While they can encourage support and bonding, relationships can be negatively affected by mood shifts and other symptoms—especially with non-menstruators.
Those with the most extreme symptoms relied on others in their lives, especially serious, cohabiting partners for support during their cycle.
Phase II Research
Understanding Partner’s roles
Hearing about the amount that those with extreme symptoms relied on partners for understanding and both physical and emotional support, we decided to focus our next phase on the role of communication between partners around menstruation.
Research Questions
ATTITUDES
What are non-menstruating partners’ attitudes towards their partners’ cycle?
COMMUNICATION
How do menstruating people currently communicate their needs to their partners? What works and doesn’t work?
INFORMATION
What information is important for non-menstruating partners to know?
Method
8 x 1-1 interviews (30 mins)
4 x paired interviews (30 mins) using an applied self-expression drawing as an elicitation technique
Results
MOOD AWARENESS
Because menstruators are not always aware of their mood symptoms, physical symptoms communicated directly while emotional symptoms are often interpreted by the non-menstruating partner.
“He can kind of sense it at a certain point when he notices mood being different”
“Sometimes he will notice where I am with my mood and say, ‘is this your emotional time for you?”
EMPATHY
There is a spectrum of empathy and understanding from non-menstruating partners about symptoms that their partner experiences.
“A girl can be more self-conscious and emotional during that time and I try to be sensitive to that.”
“I don’t know if it’s a good excuse to be grumpy because I’ve never had one before.”
While most non-menstruating partners want to be supportive, they report wanting to know what having a period is like to further empathize with their partner.
“It can be difficult to put yourself in that position and understand exactly what you would need to be comforted.”
“I would like to know how it feels… I feel I would be able to relate better.”
NEEDS AND SUPPORT
Menstruating individuals share information about their period with their partners when they are experiencing symptoms, not before.
“[My symptoms] are not consistent enough that I feel like I can be like ‘This will probably happen.”
“There will be times where I’m like, ‘I’m in a lot of pain and I can’t make dinner.’ and he’ll be like, ‘okay.’”
Most menstruators expected their non-menstruating partner to remember how they wanted to be supported during their cycle while non-menstruating partners expected to be told directly.
“When I have to deal with this pain and then I have to remind him stuff sometimes [how I need help when I’m on my period] - it feels like a lot” [menstruating partner, participant 3]
“Just tell me you're on your period and I'll try to not be a dick” [non-menstruating partner, participant 4]
Non-menstruating partners use information about their partners symptoms to interpret and act on their needs.
“If she’s in pain or having a hard time, I’ll get a bag of sweets to make the day brighter.”
“If I can tell she’s stressed or in pain, I’ll just start doing housework to get something covered so I make myself useful.”
RECCOMMENDATIONS
For menstrual applications looking to incorporate social features into their applications, our research has led to a few main takeaways:
Provide awareness
Notify menstruators about their mood symptoms so they can be more aware of the affects of hormonal changes on their behavior.
Foster empathy
Explore ways of building empathy for non-menstruating partners about physical and emotional period symptoms.
Humanize information
Deliver information about menstruators’ needs in a contextual, timely and relevant manner.