Mediating Menstrual Communication
A UX research and design project focused on aiding menstrual communication between mothers and daughters in Pakistan.
Problem Overview
This project focused on improving the menarche experience for young girls in Pakistan, targeting middle-class, urban families. Given the absence of formal sex education, mothers play a crucial role in educating their daughters. However, societal taboos around menstruation often hinder open discussions, making it essential to find ways to support mothers in providing accurate information while maintaining cultural sensitivities.
Go to Final Solution
Timeline
4 months (January - April 2024)
Team
This was my independent capstone project for my Master’s thesis
UX Methods Used
Research
Literature Survey
Focus Group
User Interviews
Cultural Probe
Thematic Analysis
Design
Ideation
Low-fi Prototyping
Hi-fi Prototyping
Presented To
Purdue UX Graduate Committee
Won 2nd Best UX Graduate Capstone Award
Problem Statement
How can we help mothers communicate with their daughters about menstruation such that it ensures the provision of adequate information and fosters open communication without encroaching on cultural values?
The Solution
A zine (and later, an app)* to be used by mothers and daughters together to aid the existing conversation that takes place regarding menstruation, with guidelines for the conversation.
*the initial idea was the zine since older mothers prefer non-digital solutions but the app was also later designed since millennial mothers whose children will soon to approaching menarche age feel more comfortable with digital solutions.
The main features that were introduced after intensive research were as follows:
Understanding the Problem
Desk Research
To develop an understanding related to the project subject matter, I research on the following areas.
Research on Menstruation in Pakistan
Role of HCI in Menstruation
Intimate Care Design
FINDING 01
Knowledge & Management Descriptive Studies
Research showed that majority of the research on menstruation in Pakistan had occurred as descriptive survey-based studies in medical contexts, focusing on the knowledge women regarding menstruation and the way they managed themselves, which happened in mostly remote areas. It was also shown that mothers are the primary source of menstrual information.
FINDING 02
HCI Community and Menstruation
Critical discourse on menstruation challenges societal views on menstrual health and self-tracking, but this approach may not work in Pakistan. I realized that designs tailored to educate children can be more effective. While current research promotes public destigmatization, a focus on improving private family communication, especially among women, would be more suitable.
Focus Group
As the research on menstruation in Pakistan identified a key gap: the actual experiences and feelings girls went through as they experienced menstruation were missing, I decided to conduct a focus group with 6 Pakistani women in their mid-20s focusing on their past and current experiences.
From the focus group I found that for young adults, it is easier to navigate through menstruation since they have become used to it, and most of the feelings of anxiety and discomfort are present around menarche so I decided to narrow the focus to young girls and menarche in Pakistan.
Cultural Probe
While conducting user interviews, I was simultaneously conducting a diary study with young girls in Pakistan between ages 10-13.
Why conduct a cultural probe study?
It is difficult to find younger participants whose parents would be comfortable with the interview so in case I was unable to find participants, the cultural probe would provide the needed perspective.
Younger audiences may not open up properly in an interview so being able to respond at their own pace may provide more thoughtful and reflective responses.
What do I want to get out of a cultural probe?
Understand adolescents’ experience with menstruation
Obtain the same information that an interview would have provided me.
The probe
initial ideation
Ideation for cultural probes
final probe design
Interviews with Mothers and Daughters
The goal here was to interview mothers and daughters between (10-15 years) to understand how the two different groups perceive the experiences, and what are the basis for their decision-making
The Result
After analyzing the data from all the primary sources of information to understand the menarche problems young girls face which primarily stemmed from home and how mothers inadvertently aid the issues at time, the following result was evident.
perceptual differences leading to a communication gap between mothers and daughters
Process Overview
Following determining the key insights to understand what the design intervention should focus on, the remaining project's process overview is presented below
After identifying the the need for creating a communication aid, I conducted a toolkit analysis related to mothers and social issues
Following that, a deep dive desk research on existing types of journals, and online resources for menstruation guides, I determined the main features to be included in the booklet (and later, the app).
Sketches
Using the above requirements, I came up sketches for a minimalistic booklet that included activities and portions geared towards mothers and daughters, focusing on ket things to include.
The goal was to keep the booklet short enough to not be a cumbersome book and be comprehensive enough to cover all the essential information.
Low-fidelity prototype
Low-fi Evaluation: Testing Out the Concept
Before moving onto creating more detailed prototypes of the booklet, I decided to test out the concept of a menstrual conversation aid with mothers and their daughters
Goal
The goal of the evaluation was to understand the following:
how easily understandable the content was
to what extent mothers considered the content appropriate
and whether the conversation prompts were helpful.
Method
To test the effectiveness, I conducted online concept testing with 2 pairs of mothers and daughters, going through the the whole document,
conversing using the prompts and then sharing their feedback on the content their level of comfort with the material and the conversation.
Results
In the description of ‘what periods are’, both mothers found the term ‘vagina’ inappropriate for young girls.
In conversation, it was found that both mothers had not talked about their own menstrual experiences with their children which may have helped them feel comfortable.
The mothers appreciated the ‘debunked myths’ parts particularly since they had to unlearn many of these as they grew up as they were told those myths.
The document had too much text and for younger audiences, it would be more helpful and engaging to include visualizations.
Iterated Design and Feedback
Based on the evaluation feedback, a hi-fidelity booklet prototype was created and evaluated and feedback and the design is presented below
Final Design
Part 1: the booklet
After taking the feedback into consideration, the booklet was edited once more to come to its final outlook.
Part 2: the app
Then, the digital version of the booklet was worked upon as an app that could be used in 2 user modes: mother and daughter.
It is important to note that since in Pakistan, children approaching the age of menarche (age 9-12) generally are not given smartphones of their own, the app is designed to cater to the existing cultural context and so be used as 2 users on the same app on the mother’s phone.
Certain features remained the same to ensure that the main goal of aiding conversation remains relevant, while some other features were also included to improve the user experience that having an app enabled.
Design system
As I headed to create the high-fidelity app design, I created the style guide and reusable design components. This design system helped to achieve efficiency and consistency in creating the different screen designs. It included all the common components which would be used for multiple screens starting from screen size, colours and fonts as assets, icons, all the forms of buttons including primary, secondary and text buttons, tooltips, etc.
UI Design
The prototype of the app design focused on all the major features and flows to provide functionality and understanding of the what the app would accomplish.
User - Mother
User - Daughter
Limitations
Despite my efforts, I do acknowledge that there are certain limitations to the project and final design.
I could conduct user evaluation with the final booklet and app as of yet.
The design applies to a specific segment of society but the issue is big enough even in this segment due to which I decided to pursue it.
This problem does not take into account other types of persons who may also menstruate.
Reflection
1
Initially, as I started this project, I was rather apprehensive since I was passionate about the topic but I was concerned about looking at menstruation from a design perspective rather than a sociological issue. The research on menstruation in HCI considerably assisted in understanding how to approach menstruation from a design perspective
2
I became more enthusiastic about the project as I did more primary research since coming across the insights and seeing the different viewpoints between mothers and daughters was very interesting. While there were several possible avenues for the research, like focusing on the school context and introducing the dialogue for the education of men, I found those to be too idealistic whose outcomes would not have been something that I could apply beyond this class and project.
3
The part I most enjoyed about the project was scoping the problem to developing the design problem after combing through all the research having started with just the idea that “I want to do something with menstruation in Pakistan”.