The Dreaded First UX Case Study — Part One (Background and Research)

So, you’ve taken a couple of courses and you are familiar with the design process, research methods and techniques. It’s now time to put all that knowledge to good use in a practical project and fit all the pieces together and that’s when it hits………….. the self-doubt, the feeling of being inadequate and wondering why in the world you thought you could do this……….

Photo by Hans-Peter Gauster on Unsplash

This was me a couple of weeks ago, overwhelmed, overthinking, over-processing and over analysing, but I’m glad I pushed through and started anyway. I’ve come to realise that it’s not about being perfect or making sure you are taking the right steps, but taking a different (more human) approach to solving problems which also means making mistakes and learning from stumbling. The result of this realisation is this — my first-ever case study I’ve called “My Moon Box” (for now). In this part, I document the background of the idea and my research process, I’d love to get feedback and finesse my process. Enough rambling here goes….

THE IDEA

Growing up, I never looked forward to having my period and always tried to find ways to be better prepared for it. As a secondary school student, I remember checking the calendar and counting days just so that I don’t get caught unawares. With the evolution of mobile technology in Nigeria, I remember scrolling through the google play store in 2010 and came across an app simply called “period tracker”. I was immediately fascinated and quickly downloaded the app, it felt like Christmas! This was a period diary, I could know my future period dates, record my symptoms and know what stage of my cycle I’m in at any given time. The experience was so amazing I had to share with all my friends.

Now 10 years later, period trackers have become popular with even more immersive experiences, but I had some doubts. How easy were these apps to use by the average Nigerian girl (Millenials and Gen Z)? Do they use these apps? and if these apps have a more Afrocentric appeal, will they find it more relatable and possibly use the apps more? With these questions, I proceeded to develop and execute a research plan

THE PROCESS

My goal for this research was to find out what the major needs were for Nigerian females between the ages of 14 and 40 when it comes to their periods to develop viable ideas on how to improve their experiences. I still unclear about where to start from or what assumptions to make so I decided to create a short questionnaire using google forms which will give me a broad overview of how my target audience felt about having periods and how they managed it. and what aspects they needed he was doing and feeling. Some of the questions included:

1. How will you describe your experience since you started having periods?
2. What emotions will you associate with your period?
3. How do you track your periods?
4. If you are currently using a mobile application to track your periods, what are your favourite features about it?
5. Do you find that you have access to all the information you need about your period

I distributed this questionnaire among some university students and my social circle and got back 52 very interesting responses. Most respondents described their experiences as bittersweet, bloody, inconvenient, painful and uncomfortable with 51% of respondents saying that they felt cranky and frustrated about having periods. With regards to management, 85% had a reliable system for tracking their periods (about half of which uses apps) and one of the biggest challenges they faced was feeling unprepared and insecure. With this information, I could now form my assumptions

1. Despite having periods regularly, women don’t look forward to it, even when they are expecting it.
2. Women feel like they don’t have full control over their bodies and by extension their lives while they are on their periods and are constantly looking for ways to deal with the negative emotions they feel.

To further validate my assumptions, I conducted 6 interviews and analysed findings using affinity diagrams to identify key themes. I discovered that younger girls didn’t feel comfortable talking about their periods with their friends and for all of those I spoke to, having some sense of control will help to boost their confidence and help with the negative emotions they feel.

This helped to define my Point of View through the following statement

Young Nigerian Women between the ages of 16–35 need a service that helps them feel more in control during their periods so that they can be more confident, secure and prepared in their daily activities.

I then developed an empathy map and created 3 personas which focused on the major characteristics and behaviours of my target audience.

One of the three personas (my personal favourite)

The next phase was to ideate — come up with ways of making periods a smooth experience by easing the negative emotions associated with it. I made use of How Might We technique to help me keep my audience in focus, some of the statements I came up with include

“How might we make periods seamless and comfortable for young women?”

“How might we help women feel more confident and prepared for their periods?”

THE SOLUTION

While brainstorming, one idea stuck, during the interviews, I had mostly encountered ladies who used digital apps to track their periods (The Flo app was the most preferred). I thought of optimising the experience these ladies had by creating another app that had all the highlights of the Flo app such as receiving discreet and custom notifications, daily health insights and an interactive community.

• A fresh and colourful Afrocentric design to make the app more relatable
• Pidgin language options (Pidgin is an English-based language spoken as a lingua franca across Anglophone West African Countries, also referred to as Broken English)

The idea seemed perfect, I started to create site maps and user flows and then it struck me, how does this app help women feel more positive and prepared for having periods? Asides being relatable, how does this app improve their experiences? I felt defeated, in my excitement I had chosen an idea without putting the needs of my target audience at the center, I had forgotten my path of empathy and chosen with what will “look good” rather than what will solve the problem. I blamed myself and felt like I had failed, sulked for a few days (this didn’t help in any way)

Going back over my notes, I slowly realised that my failure was part of the process, I had learnt what not to do in the design thinking process. I needed to retrace my steps and be more conscious and aware of the target audience needs and pain points this time. I printed my personas, hung them up and reframed my questions so that my users didn’t seem arbitrary. Instead of How might we make periods seamless and comfortable for young women? I asked How might we help Amaka an ambitious customer Sales representative feel more prepared for her periods? How might we encourage good and healthy lifestyle habits that will boost Amaka’s confidence?

Taking this step, I had come up with a couple of ideas (most of which were not digital). To narrow down these ideas I used two major techniques, first I used the Now-wow-how matrix to eliminate the ideas I couldn’t implement. And because I didn’t want to make the same mistake I had made earlier, using an idea selection criteria template, I developed a list of requirements based on my personas needs and pain points and used this as a guide to further eliminate other ideas.

The Idea that seemed to satisfy most of the requirements was the monthly self-care subscription box service. I then began the next phase of my research, looking up similar services and understanding how it works and how this idea can be implemented successfully in Nigeria. I found a couple of great sites and then proceeded to list out the major features (and questions) that this subscription box service needed to have.

1. Flexible prices points: my target audience age range is quite wide and I had to put varying incomes into consideration, how can I do this?
2. Customisable: Do users want to be able to customise their boxes or should the items be chosen for them based on their preferences?
3. Wow factor: In my research, each of the boxes had a wow factor. Do my users love surprises? Will receiving a mystery item increase expectancy and make them look forward to getting their boxes each month?
4. Timing: This is a crucial factor, as the major goal was to help women feel more prepared for the arrival of their periods. The goal will be defeated if they received the box after or during their periods. Will including a simple calendar in the app/site solve this? or will users prefer to sync their current calendars with the app/site?

The next stage is to design wireframes and lo-fi prototypes to test the varying ideas I have. I will be sure to check back in when that’s completed

p.s. I will appreciate feedback on my process so far and pointers on how I may have done things better……