Getting a few things ready...
Getting a few things ready...
Case Study
UI/UX
Product Design
Mobile
Role: UI/UX researcher and designer. Additionally, I fleshed out the product design in collaboration with the stakeholder, Brooklyn Law School's BLIP clinic.
I chose to take on this project because I have no prior experience with menstrual tracking, and I'd need to fully engage with the UX research side to empathize with users and uncover key insights.
Since the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court decision eliminating the constitutional right to abortion, many US states have passed legislation restricting women's healthcare.
Meanwhile, in 2021, a Rock Health survey found that 29% of respondents between ages 18 and 51 track their period digitally. And in the current political climate, users of these health informatics tools are increasingly concerned that their personal data may be used against them.
Brooklyn Law School's BLIP (Brooklyn Law Incubator & Policy) clinic undertook the project of constructing a new legal framework for the protection of this personal data, using the concept of a Data Trust.
The product design goal was to build a period tracking app that puts user privacy front and center. The BLIP team was concerned mainly with the legal aspects, and I volunteered to flesh out their ideas with UI/UX designs.
The project brief I received included a few low-fidelity illustrations produced by the law students working on the project:
Given my lack of experience with menstrual tracking, I would need to carefully study the leading apps in this space. I downloaded the top period-tracking apps (and iOS' native Health app), used them for several weeks, and compared their features and the way they handle data storage.
I also interviewed several friends who use menstrual tracking apps about their experiences, and the changes they'd like to see.
Pain points from user interviews:
During the competitive analysis phase, I found it interesting that there's no consensus among period tracking apps on the best way to visually represent the menstrual cycle on the home screen. Different apps use one of these three visual schema:
In each of my user interviews, I asked for feedback on the most useful way to represent cycle data, and learned that it really depends on context. When thinking about periods through a medical/biological lens, often the circle is best. Through a social and professional lens, the calendar was cited as most useful; users will often be thinking of how an upcoming period may affect upcoming appointments, vacations, etc. The timeline approach was not preferred by any of the users I interviewed.
Based on this feedback, I decided to include both the circle and calendar schema (for the current cycle) on the home screen to accommodate the needs of users regardless of their personal context.
All period apps, even if they do not use the calendar as the main visual, do include a secondary calendar page with the ability to scroll infinitely forward and backward, and Mnthly includes this as well.
The branding for Mnthly needed to strike a delicate balance between approachability and professionalism. I also wanted to avoid, for the most part, a stereotypically feminine palette — firstly to differentiate from other products on the market, and second to signal that Mnthly can be used by anyone. Originally, the color denoting periods was a more severe red, but this was softened at the request of the stakeholder.
The original mockups from the BLIP stakeholders included a rounded typeface, which isn't an obvious choice for a health informatics app intended to evoke seriousness and security. As a design challenge to myself, I wanted to preserve the idea of rounded type without sacrificing the brand's values. The best candidate was Varela Round.
The first draft of the Data Center already included more granular data controls than any other period app, but after a review with the stakeholder, we wanted to take the concept even further. Based on guidance from the stakeholder, I iterated on the idea of fully customizable data management.
Other apps allow you to delete all of your user data, but they aren't clear about what data is collected, and you can't choose to keep certain types of data. Mnthly gives the user control over data categories, and data can be deleted per month or per day.
Final Result
