Getting Started
- Crimson Wave
- Oct 5, 2017
- 15 min read
In this post, we will describe the problems we’re trying to solve, proposed solutions, and related work.
The Problem
Every person’s period is completely unique. One’s menstrual cycle can be affected by stress, illness, medicine, pregnancy, and whatever else life throws one’s way. Period tracker apps on the market today try to set people to the norms of a 28-day long menstrual cycle. As each of the team members can testify, such a “picture perfect” period doesn’t exist. Instead of making people with periods feel guilty about not conforming to arbitrary medical standards, we want to develop a TUI that learns your period on a day-to-day basis. By subtly reading biometrics such a basal body temperature, heart rate, (etc), our TUI will be able to inform you about where you are in your menstrual cycle and ways in which you can live your best life given your physical and emotional state. This will allow the user to learn more about their bodies through a personally tailored TUI. Additionally, period tracker apps are not well integrated into our lives, requiring us to consciously and manually record data (when we take birth control, when we start our periods, etc.) in order to learn anything. Lastly, apps today tend to focus on one part of the menstrual cycle. For example, one can find apps that remind users to take their birth control, let them know their period/ovulation cycle, track their fertility, etc. However, there isn’t one app that is tailored to each individual’s unique experience and provide a holistic view of the user’s cycle and needs for them.
In conclusion, one’s menstrual cycle impacts every aspect of their daily lives (weight, acne, moods, energy level, etc.) but due to a lack of sexual education and holistic understanding of the variables that affect the users, people are often unable to fully comprehend their own bodies. Additionally, many people who experience periods have to rearrange their lives around their menstrual cycles, such when scheduling their vacations or choosing certain clothes. Life becomes easier when a user is more in tune with their bodies and cycles by integrating it into their daily lives.
Users
We expect that our users will be people who have periods and will most likely be under 51 years of age, as that is the average age of menopause. Considering they will have to integrate this technology into their daily lives, they have to feel comfortable with devices and have an interest in using technology to understand their periods. Therefore, we assume many users will be millennials though we hope to reach users of all ages. People experiencing the beginning of menopause may also appreciate a device monitoring their periods so it doesn’t show/not show as unexpectedly.
These users may have used period apps in the past and disliked the experience because they had to manually add the information into their devices. We could also assume that users who are more forgetful may be interested in our product since the product is just like wearing a piece of jewelry and doesn’t require consciously inputting data.
Potential users also may not have liked the period apps because these apps tend to focus on specific parts of the menstrual cycle rather than integrate all aspects together into one interface. Users who are looking for a more accurate holistic view of their periods, ovulation, general cycle, fertility/contraception usage, etc. would be interested this app. Users who are also passionate about their physical health would enjoy the experience of learning more about their individualized bodies on a day to day basis.
Lastly, interested users may not have enjoyed their previous experiences with period apps because these apps have a traditional view of menstrual cycles (28 days). Users with irregular periods and reproductive health issues (ex. PCOS, ovarian tumors, weight gain/loss) will be interested in this product because it will not impose generalized averages upon people and works off personal biometrics to give a more accurate and live result.
Proposed Solution
Illustration of Crimson Wave, a TUI that tracks, calculates, and support users and their periods
Knowing what one’s body needs that specific day within one’s menstrual cycle will allow users to live that day to their full potential. Therefore, our TUI will educate users and provide the tools for a better life.
We were very inspired by a short video that shows how one’s body works throughout its menstrual cycle and its strengths and weaknesses during different stages. We imagine our TUI will be able to assess these stages and provide advice such as, “Avoid caffeine today to help with upcoming cramps”.
“Science fiction writer Bruce Sterling defines design fiction as ‘the deliberate use of diegetic prototypes to suspend disbelief about change’ [18]. Diegetic prototypes refer to ‘objects and technologies that exist within the fictional world’”, and in that spirit, we brainstormed our TUI to fit on anyone’s vanity, desk, bathroom counter, coffee table, or any flat surface and mimic objects with which we are already familiar.
What we imagine is a circular mirror that is outfitted with an LED ring light that is able to indicate with different colors one’s where one is in their menstrual cycle. At the base of this mirror, there will be a jewelry dish/ring holder that will read the information that is collected from a piece of jewelry that is a biometric sensor. This jewelry will be worn by the user on a daily basis so the item can track data like temperature and heart rate. The mirror will read the aggregated data and turn on the LED light to a color that corresponds with the menstrual cycle stage the user is in. The mirror may be motion sensored to conserve energy. If you want to learn about current and past period data, you may speak to the mirror, which will act like an “Alexa” or “Siri” type interface. You can call upon this voice by saying, “Mirror Mirror” and the intelligent personal assistant will respond with what day/stage in the cycle you are, some suggestions about what to do/avoid to optimize your day, your fertility chances, and other important data. Conversation with the assistant will allow the TUI to note data verbally inputted from the user like mood, body pain, etc. The mirror will also be a touch screen so that users will also have a visual representation of their data. This solution brings periods into the private space of the individual where they often look in the mirror and beautify themselves. This integrates our TUI into people’s lives. A tangible approach that is well contextualized will get rid of the fact that it can be a hassle to remember to input data into a period tracker app.
There will be additional features to amplify the user’s experience. For example, in respect for this private space, the TUI will have facial recognition as a password protection measure. Additionally, the TUI will offer a feature to export the data to other devices in order to share the information with the user’s doctor, significant other, or chosen confidants. A fun feature in the jewelry is that it will change color, like a mood ring, to also match the menstrual cycle stage the user is in.
We believe that this project is well suited to a TUI because this TUI gathers data, specifically temperature, in a non-invasive way that doesn’t interrupt the user’s routine. It also takes this data and displays visual updates on the user’s menstrual cycle on the mirror, effectively integrating it into the user’s movements in a room without turning it into a task or something the user must think about.
Related Work
We first looked through the existing literature for any solutions or related work. In technology, there seems to be a similar squeamishness surrounding menstruation as in medicine, because we had a difficult time finding the following four articles on the ACM digital library.
PeriodShare: In this paper Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard and Lone Koefoed Hansen propose this outlandish and frankly strange TUI that is a menstrual cup that aggregates data about when and how much a person bleeds and collects it for the user to share across social media platforms. In fact, the two researchers outright state at the beginning of this paper that PeriodShare is “a design fiction that investigates the social and cultural aspects of menstruation by speculating “what if menstruation had monetary or social value?”. They recognize that there is a dearth of research with respect to menstruation-related TUIs “Apart from […“a design fiction by artist-designer Sputniko!”…], not much HCI research has been done on menstruation, although 2015 has been named ‘the year of the period’”; however they do not pioneer a new way of measuring and educating people about female health. The bulk of PeriodShare’s actionable research is in the fictive app and Kickstarter campaign that accompanied this ubiquitous computing menstrual cup. The two researchers wanted to create the illusion that PeriodShare was an earnest idea so that they could observe people’s attitudes to this TUI that takes today’s share-everything culture to the limits of social mores. While they claim that “this is a case study of how one might use design fiction as a critical tool to challenge both the taboo of menstruation and the way that technologies interweave with cultural and political issues”, for the most part, PeriodShare seems farcical to us and not a reasonable solution for us to consider. Our TUI will be able to subtly integrate into our world.
Menstrual Tracking and Personal Informatics Tools: The team of researchers behind this paper offer valuable insight into the current state of the art as well as the current culture of menstrual tracking. They “find that women track their menstrual cycle for varied reasons that include remembering and predicting their period as well as informing conversations with healthcare providers.” In general, the researchers found that “women (1) use phone apps, (2) use digital calendars, (3) write in paper diaries, (4) follow cues in their birth control, (5) notice symptoms, or (6) simply remember” to mentally stay on top of their periods. The team’s methodology included app reviews followed by surveys and then interviews with women (they opt to use this non-inclusive word to talk about people who have or have had periods) as to why they like to keep track of their menstrual cycles, the reasons they discover being that people like to “(1) be aware of how their body is doing, (2) understand their body’s reactions to different phases of their cycle, (3) be prepared, (4) become pregnant, and (5) inform conversations with healthcare providers.” By analyzing designs to reveal “the downsides to normative design choices,” the researchers found that while women consider “apps and calendars helpful, these methods are ineffective when predictions of future menstrual cycles are inaccurate. Designs can create feelings of exclusion for gender and sexual minorities. Existing apps also generally fail to consider life stages that women experience, including young adulthood, pregnancy, and menopause.” In fact, as long as the state of the art is discreet, somewhat accurate, and allows women to be informed going into doctor visits, women seem to be fine settling for what is available because, as the researchers deduce “in menstrual cycle tracking… women primarily observe what they are tracking, with little or no control over how and when it will occur beyond hormonal regulation through birth control. Rather than trying to change the outcome being tracked, women track to learn how to adjust their thoughts and behaviors around it. This paper is incredibly useful in that it gives good data on what things are like now. We want to create a TUI that will proactively help people stay one step ahead of what their menstrual cycles are doing that day.
mHealth: Menopause is a time full of change for some people. According to the team of researchers who wrote this paper, “it was found that the level of knowledge on menopause is positively correlated to the behavior to improve their health. Most maintained healthy lifestyle if they have adequate information.” With our TUI, we want to be able to support users in their pursuit of a healthy lifestyle by informing them about their menstrual health on a day-to-day basis. While menopause is characterized by “depression, flushing, sweating, insomnia, and colpoxerosis,” periods come with their own set of symptoms that also can get in the way of user’s lives. The researchers interviewed women going through menopause to learn what they need through that particular period in their lives and subsequently they developed a prototype. While the prototype proposed in this paper is adapted for mobile devices only, it gives our TUI a standard for which to strive. While our TUI may not provide a social networking aspect, our TUI will help users by presenting “visualized data” and provide reliable information about their menstrual health. Our TUI will differ from the prototype in this paper in that it will step away from having the calendar paradigm as the primary way of visualizing data. This framework reinforces the idea of a “picture perfect” period, and it would do us well to move away from that. Our TUI will also be able to record any and all data, even the bits of information that the user feels is unnecessary. Researchers found that women did not want to record their periods during menopause because they feel that they “don’t really need to now.” In order to get the full picture, our TUI will be collecting information in a way that doesn’t annoy users.
Participatory User Requirements Elicitation for Personal Menopause App: This paper written by Amaury Trujillo and Maria Claudia Buzzi presents the idea that while menopause is a huge part of a woman’s lifestyle ife, it is also something that women rarely well-informed about. They suggest that a mobile app which teaches and encourages women is a good solution to the problem. The paper focuses on the early stages of the design of such an app, working from medium sized groups of potential users. This paper takes into account the lack of HCI literature surrounding women’s health and suggests that the cause of this is related to taboos and embarrassment about women’s bodies and how they function. As part of the study the participants storyboarded with a persona about the uses of the app. The projects is still in the early stages, but their conclusions were that many women aren’t aware of what happens during the different stages of menopause, and many would be willing to incorporate technology into their lives that would help give them personal data on their menopause. While this paper presents a GUI solution, and we are creating a TUI, we are exploring it because there isn’t much literature on TUI projects about women’s bodies. Our TUI addresses the idea that women want to know more about their bodies and their menstrual cycles, and turns it into an easy experience where users don’t have to input data in an app like this paper suggests. Our TUI also turns the data into a visually appealing LED mirror that integrates the information into our daily routine.
We then searched for existing period trackers/women’s health apps on the market. Because the team members also fall within the target demographics of potential users, we looked at the period tracker apps we each use and beyond, however, because none of the team members own a phone other than an iPhone, we referred to this list compiled by Refinery29 to see what was on other mobile app stores. It is important to note that there are more apps than are listed below; many are redundant though.
P Tracker Lite: Our solution is different from this application mainly because it is a traditional “28 day cycle” app. What this means is, it assumes your period is coming every 28 days with the flexibility of a couple days earlier/later depending on the data you provide. It also automatically assumes you are ovulating exactly 2 weeks after the first day of your period, again with the flexibility of a couple days earlier/later depending on your data. Whereas our app will take give users a live update of their cycle based on their basal temperature. Additionally, when you look at future months in the app, you see grey days where the app believes you will get your period. If your period arrives later than that projected date, the home screen shows the user that they are “x days late”. These features, combined with just the general countdown to their next projected period date, can stress users out who have irregular periods, whether they believe they’re pregnant or not. We want to create an interface that makes users with irregular periods comfortable and will try to either avoid data that states how late they are/a countdown to their period or will try to make this data subtle. Additionally, the user has to manually input data manually into their app and then upcoming projections depend on the past three months of inputted data. If the user forgets one month, the accuracy of their app lessens. The accuracy of our TUI will not necessarily be affected by the consistency or the frequency that users input their data and users will not have to manually put in the data.
P Tracker Lite calendar view
P Tracker Lite home screen with countdown
P Tracker Lite allows you to record the various symptoms you experience that day
My Cycles Period and Ovulation Tracker: When a user sets up an account for this app, it asks the user when their last period was. It then states that it will set the flow for four days and an average cycle duration of 28 days but doesn’t allow the user to change these two options. This deters users who have irregular cycles or shorter/longer flows. Our TUI will not have this inflexibility and will go off live input from users. This app is also based off of averages, just like the previously mentioned app is. Therefore, this app, like others, gets more accurate the more you use it, while ours plans to be accurate from the first day since it will use basal temperatures. This app advertises a “community” section where users can ask other users questions and start discussions with them. Our TUI will be an individualized product and won’t really have a place for users to ask other users questions about their periods, etc. What may prove useful to us, however, is the way in which this app uses mood, weight, and temperature to keep track of people’s “fertile window”; this may inform what our TUI should sense. Our TUI, however, will not cause users to feel embarrassed that their cycles are irregular because it will not be dependent on the calendar paradigm.
My Cycles Period and Ovulation Tracker home page with countdown
My Cycles Period and Ovulation Tracker fertile window tracker
EVA: The Windows app encourages users that they only “show up in the app once a month to notify EVA that your period has come. She takes care of all the rest. She also doesn’t mind if you drop by every day to tell her how you feel – she really wants to know.” We would like our TUI to be as unobtrusive and “easy going” as this one in that it can use disparate data points to inform users about their menstrual cycle. Like other apps, EVA has a calendar view of a user’s past and future periods as well as a log of their symptoms, and our TUI moves away from this paradigm.
EVA home page displays a period countdown and provides two useful buttons to the user
Eve: This app is similar to the previous ones in that it offers the user a calendar view of their menstrual cycle. Eve allows users to also look at their cycle in the shape of a ring in order to reinforce the idea that menstruation is not a shocking, bloody event that happens once a month but rather a continuous cycle that repeats. The app allows its users to log everything from sexual activity to mood to exercise choices, and based on this information and where a user is in their cycle, the app provides a “daily forecast” as to what is in store for user on a given day in their menstrual cycle. One of our teammates uses this app and has an incredibly irregular period, and she finds that this information is inaccurate and therefore can be misleading. This app also attempts to do too much, and the user must therefore be constantly feeding it information in a way that is very annoying. Eve comes with forums where users may connect and discuss any topic related to women’s health; however, these forums are not required to uphold any degree of medical accuracy because this is where users come to vent about anything. While it is fun to commiserate over how difficult periods can be, these forums can be harmful in that it may misinform users. Our TUI will not pester users for data and will give actionable and accurate information.
Eve home page with cyclical calendar view
Eve allows users to log sexual activity, mood, diet, exercise, etc.
Eve provides generalized daily forecasts that are based on the user’s cycle
Eve allows its users to connect in forums
Wearables: Fitbit and Apple Watch are just two of the most popular wearables on the market. While they do not necessarily offer the most powerful computing wherever a user goes, it does record a user’s biometric data through its sensor. This data is then aggregated and calculated to inform the user of their current health. In a similar manner, we want our TUI to sense the same things that Fitbits and Apple Watch do such as heart rate, basal temperature, etc. as well as any other information that is useful to keeping track of one’s menstrual cycle. Our TUI, unlike these wearables, will be specifically adapted to track and support users through their periods.
Works Cited
Amaury Trujillo and Maria Claudia Buzzi. 2016. Participatory User Requirements Elicitation for Personal Menopause App. In Proceedings of the 9th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (NordiCHI ’16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 102, 6 pages. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/2971485.2996737
Daniel A. Epstein, Nicole B. Lee, Jennifer H. Kang, Elena Agapie, Jessica Schroeder, Laura Pina, James Fogarty, Julie A. Kientz, and Sean Munson. 2017. Examining Menstrual Tracking to Inform the Design of Personal Informatics Tools. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’17). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 6876-6888. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025635
Evathebot.com. (2017). Period tracker for Windows. [online] Available at: http://evathebot.com[Accessed 5 Oct. 2017].
Glow, Inc. (2017). Period Tracker App – Eve on the App Store. [online] App Store. Available at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/period-tracker-app-eve/id1002275138?mt=8 [Accessed 5 Oct. 2017].
GP LLC. (2017). Period Tracker Lite on the App Store. [online] App Store. Available at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/period-tracker-lite/id330376830?mt=8 [Accessed 5 Oct. 2017].
Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard and Lone Koefoed Hansen. 2016. PeriodShare: A Bloody Design Fiction. In Proceedings of the 9th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (NordiCHI ’16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 113, 6 pages.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/2971485.2996748
Mirim Lee, Bon-chang Koo, Hee-seok Jeong, Joongsin Park, Juhee Cho, and Jun-dong Cho. 2015. Understanding Women’s Needs in Menopause for Development of mHealth. In Proceedings of the 2015 Workshop on Pervasive Wireless Healthcare (MobileHealth ’15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 51-56. DOI=http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2757290.2757295
MedHelp. (2017). My Cycles Period and Ovulation Tracker on the App Store. [online] Available at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my-cycles-period-and-ovulation tracker/id335875911?mt=8 [Accessed 5 Oct. 2017].
This is Your Period in 2 Minutes. (2016). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOi2Bwvp6hw: Glamour.
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