Addressing Period Poverty

the problem

Thousands of women living in poverty do not have access to the products they need to manage their hygiene. Often times, women are tasked to choose between food and tampons, bringing to question whether menstrual products are a luxury or a right. This issue is so prevalent there is a newly coined term to address it: period poverty.

the solution

A peer-to-peer application that allows people to easily donate menstrual products to women in need. The app lets in-need women make requests for a specific product to be delivered at their donation center (shelter, church, etc). and others to easily accept their requests. The donor can find requests based on distance and demand, and can donate either by-hand or through Amazon. The donation center can also make requests on behalf of in-need women and for their center if they are running low on supplies.

research interviews

I knew that my solution would serve women living in period poverty, but a big and early challenge in this project was getting insights from this group. Fortunately, I was able to speak with a couple women in this space, along with friends and family. Specifically, I spoke with MaryAnn, Director of Outreach at St. Anthony’s Shrine in Boston, who runs several programs serving low-income women, and Linda, a recipient of the Shrine’s services.

Insights from Linda:

• Has experienced homelessness for several years

• Has used toilet paper as an alternative to tampons

• Had stage 5 cervical cancer at the age of 19

• Doesn’t feel comfortable buying feminine hygiene products from the store, so she goes to St. Francis to obtain them

• Has a strong personal preference of product

Insights from MaryAnn:

• This is a problem for not only homeless women, but also women with a home living in poverty

• These women depend on shelters, churches, food banks, community centers and clinics

• Menstrual products are very expensive, often taxed, not included in SNAP, and many people aren’t aware of this problem or how to help

• There are many health risks associated with the lack of menstrual hygiene, including cervical cancer and bacterial infections

• Many people value making an impact in their community

secondary research

Since I couldn’t speak to many people in my target user group, I did a bunch of secondary research as well, and came across a very relevant Obstetrics & Gynecology research study done in 2019. The study was conducted with a sample of 184 low-income women living in St. Louis.

Notable insights:

• 89% of women bought their own products, but 63% relied on donated products at one point

• 60% experienced food insecurity in the last year

• Many have stolen products out of desperation or used dangerous alternatives

• Products received from community service organizations are often lesser in quality, leading to women using them up more quickly

• Women and teenagers don’t know enough about menstruation

• Transportation is a huge hurdle - the money spent on public transport to get to discount stores could be spent on products

• Many are very concerned about safety

personas

ideating

From here, I worked on ideating a couple of solution concepts:

1. An application where locations can keep their inventory of products public, in-need women can request a certain product to that center, and someone with means and willingness can donate it there

2. An application or website focused on promoting awareness through interactive games and information

I chose to focus in on the first concept, as I felt it might have the most immediate impact. I then made some rough sketches and flows for a potential experience.

I decided to start with the donator experience, and kept it focused around a map to motivate a sense of community building. I looked at other map based applications during this process for inspiration (Uber, Blue Bikes, etc.)

lo-fi wireframes

Challenges

I got a lot of very valuable feedback on my designs, but a piece that stood out to me was about how comfortable an in-need woman would be, with sharing her name and photograph. This idea posed a big challenge: balancing the project goal of driving donations with protecting the privacy of key users.

I decided to do look into some psychology research for guidance and came across two relevant principles:

System 1 and System 2: Notable psychologist Daniel Kahneman claims that the brain can be separated into two systems. System 1 is fast, emotional, and unconscious while System 2 is slow, logical, and conscious. Kahneman suggests that while we like to think that we are using System 2 to make deliberate choices, hundreds of experiments have shown that System 1 is what mostly drives our decision-making process. Eliciting an emotional response in someone may promote a stronger desire in them to help those in need, because we tend to make emotional decisions rather than rational ones.

Identifiable Victim Effect: Humans also tend to relate more to specific individuals rather than groups. We empathize more when a problem is humanized with details of a single victim - details like a story, a face, or a name. Although it would make more rational sense to be moved by a number of people, the emotional side of our brain, System 1, takes over.

As the product owner, my goal was to drive donations and the research was in favor of sharing personal details. But also as the designer, I wanted to put my users’ needs first. The logical compromise was to make that feature optional; users can decide if they would like to reveal those details about themselves.  However, that also brought up an interesting question about biases that I’d like to explore further someday:

• Will users who choose to show their face and name receive more donations than those who don’t?

• Are certain details more influential over others?

I wrote a blog post about the importance of this research too!

Experience Overview

• Motivation-Based Flow: A donor can find locations based on the highest need, through the list view, or based on the closest distance, through the map. Location tags on the map vary on fill, based on supply and requests in that location.

• Privacy: A receiver can choose to disclose their name and picture, and can make requests for a specific product to their local church/shelter, protecting their privacy.

• Personal Connection: Donors can see who their contributions are going to, and receivers can send thank-you notes to their donors.

• Donation Options: A donor can set up monetary donations or accept a product donation, either by-hand or through Amazon.

Partnerships & Stakeholders

• Donation Locations: Locations can help more women in their direct communities, while also raising funding and supplies.

• Menstrual Product Companies: With more resources, these companies can be valuable partners in promoting this application, and maximizing impact.

takeaways

I really enjoyed this project, because it allowed me to really delve into a lot of research and focus on a problem that I personally care about. It also got me thinking more intentionally about visual design and accessibility. The feedback I got was extremely valuable and brought up a lot of interesting questions that I’d like to learn more about as well. For the future, I would love to explore an onboarding process and also flesh out the experience from the other two user groups (the receiver and the organization).