CASE STUDY | MOBILE APP DESIGN

A groundbreaking app dedicated to women’s health offering personalized insights tailored to empower women at every stage of their lives.

My Days

WOMEN’S HEALTH APP

MY ROLE

I spearheaded a design initiative aimed at proposing a re-design for women’s health app. My role encompassed a tasks from conducting research and strategic planning to crafting intuitive interface designs and prototyping user experiences.

My Days in motion

Embarking on the journey of re-designing ‘My Days’, a venerable app that has a rich history of providing unwavering support from the onset of menstruation through pregnancy and into menopause. ‘My Days’ held immense potential for transformation. This is the story of how I undertook the challenge of revitalizing this beloved app, with the aim of empowering women to cultivate a deeper understanding of their health and take charge of their well-being like never before.

THE CHALLENGE

Firstly,

the redesign prioritized enhancing the user experience while preserving the app’s effective functionality.

Secondly,

a significant challenge revolved around fostering a culture of comfort and openness regarding menstruation within the redesign. Recognizing and addressing menstrual health and information is pivotal to reproductive health and, consequently, to our collective well-being and future.

THE APPROACH

Utilizing Mobile Apps for Menstrual Cycle Monitoring

“With the rapid evolution of technology and the ubiquitous presence of mobile apps as vehicles of knowledge, women now possess unparalleled access to health information. Furthermore, they relish the social liberation to openly explore this knowledge at their convenience, regardless of time or location.”

These innovative apps offer invaluable insights into the menstrual cycle, particularly beneficial for individuals with irregular periods.
Beyond fertility management, the data gathered by these apps proves instrumental during medical consultations, enabling patients to provide detailed information to healthcare providers. This facilitates faster diagnosis and treatment, enhancing overall healthcare outcomes.
Furthermore, the apps streamline medication and contraception management, particularly aiding individuals undergoing fertility treatments like IVF and IUI. By offering tailored insights, they empower users to optimize treatment timing, ultimately increasing the likelihood of success.

Widely embraced by women aiming to conceive, they accurately predict ovulation and fertility windows, optimizing chances of pregnancy. Moreover, they serve as a hormone-free contraceptive method.

1. NOTING MOODS

“Not knowing when I will be a weepy, bloated mess or a super-charged, productive go-getter makes my emotional roller-coaster even more intense”

The intricate relationship between hormonal fluctuations and various aspects of a woman’s health, from food cravings to migraines, underscores the significant impact menstruation has on mood. Oestrogen dominance tends to correlate with mood swings characterized by increased irritability and anger, while progesterone dominance is often linked with feelings of low mood, weepiness, anxiety, and diminished self-confidence.

Through observation, it became evident that tracking moods not only reduced anxiety but also facilitated a deeper understanding of one’s mind and body. This awareness empowered women to navigate their emotional experiences more effectively, fostering a greater sense of control and well-being.

2.REDUCE MEDICAL INTERVENTIONS

This enhanced understanding of how hormonal fluctuations influence mood can play a crucial role in reducing unnecessary medical interventions. By recognizing the cyclical nature of these mood variations and their correlation with menstrual cycles, women can better differentiate between normal fluctuations and potential signs of underlying health concerns.

“A survey of 300 women in the UK in 1998 classified 31% as having severe PMS symptoms, of whom 53% sought medical help” (UK primary care database)

3. HOW A HEALTH TRACKER APP WORKS

Many apps require women to manually input various data points including period dates, mood, physical activity, and symptoms such as headaches, fatigue, or acne. Leveraging artificial intelligence, these apps then analyze the collected data to identify individual patterns unique to each user.

These personalized patterns serve as the foundation for generating health-related insights, predictions, and general information tailored to the specific needs of every user.

4. studying the EXISTING APP FOR RE-DESIGN

Equipped with this valuable insight, I recognized the critical significance of incorporating specific features into the app. These features serve not only as enhancements but also as guiding tools, directing users toward a deeper comprehension of their health and well-being.

I aimed to understand what aspects were effective and what areas could be refined for an optimized user experience

HOME SCREEN

DATA ENTRY

PERSONAL NOTES

MOOD INFO

HISTORY

LENGTH ENTRY

The ‘MY DAYS’ Home Screen displayed informative content but required a clear information hierarchy, making it essential to prioritize the understanding of the Red Routes for users.

The primary task of noting the menstrual cycle should be intuitively guided for users.
Attracting attention by grouping related elements, and conveying meaning with color could play a crucial role in communication. While the app effectively utilized blood red, enhancements were needed in the overall color scheme

Visual representations of data entry for period mood, weight, and symptoms required could improved intuitiveness. Notably, essential data entries like period length, cycle length, and luteal length utilized a slide feature, which needed ease-of-use with the finger-based slider. Additionally, color and contrast enhancements could enhance the aesthetic appeal.

THE DESIGN PHASE & THE FRAMEWORK

SIMPLICITY IN DESIGN IS KEY TO EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

Simplicity minimizes intimidation and maintains user focus on the core functions of the app

COLOR AS A TOOL TO EVOKE EMOTIONS

Color evokes emotional responses – each hue elicits a unique emotional resonance when perceived.

FOCUS ON USERS RATHER THAN FEATURES

Tailored experiences based on individual symptoms and data emerge as the paramount factor in a user-centric tracker app

Information Architecture | Low-fidelity wireframes

Early sketches and pathways for framework

pathfinding and BRANDING

Incorporating tertiary colors with a subtle touch of the primary red can indeed enhance contrast and draw attention effectively. This balanced approach adds visual interest without overwhelming the user interface.

Pathfinding involves grouping the most crucial data inputs for menstruation and ovulation while ensuring ease of accessibility:

Menstruation Data Inputs: Consolidate essential data such as dates, cramp severity, and flow.
Ovulation Data Inputs: Include user’s sexual activity, birth control, and moods.
Diverting Features: Place features like managing accounts, setting passwords, and visibility control in the side navigation for quick access.
Frequently Accessed Features: Ensure a clear view of frequently accessed features such as settings, diary, history, and chats by creating a bottom tab.
Multi-User Capability: Enable multi-user capability to allow tracking of family members’ period details, catering to concerned mothers.
Quick Access to Daily Feeds: Incorporate a button for easy viewing of daily feeds, facilitating searching for specific dates and their associated feeds, which is beneficial for sharing information with doctors if necessary.
Color Scheme: Utilize subtle tints of purple with a contrasting red to create a pleasant palette for the app’s new design, considering the potentially overwhelming nature of menstruation tracking and ovulation.

This approach ensures efficient navigation and user-friendly experience, optimizing the app’s utility for its users.

“Drop” as the hero

Using a ‘blood drop’ as the single intuitive button for data input not only added a unique and thematic touch but also simplified the user experience by providing a clear and intuitive entry point.

This iteration on the concept ultimately led to a solution that resonated well with the design goals.

Limiting the number of functions available in the drop button during the initial iterations helped maintain simplicity and clarity in user interaction, allowing users to grasp the functionality easily.

Continuing to refine and iterate on this idea based on user feedback will likely further optimize its usability and effectiveness within the design strategy.