Woohee





Code Red

My RoleResearch, strategy, UX design

Team
Uijin Yang / UI Designer
Seongjun Jeon / Strategist
Geon Kim / Motion Designer
Duration5 months

Recognition
UX Design Awards
Red Dot Design Awards Code Red creates a safe community for women and girls to raise awareness on female health and donate to end period poverty.

I participated as a team lead and a UX designer by initiating the concept and building a structure throughout the entire project.





Overview

Problem

Period poverty is a global issue that affects millions of people who lack access to menstrual products and hygienic facilities. While this is a sharing experience of many, potential donors and people in need have hard time connecting.


Outcome

A mobile platform that works as a both period tracker and a place to help people in need of menstrual products.

Main features include:
  • Marketplace where users can purchase and donate sustainable and affordable menstrual products
  • Location-based map to be informed of users in need
  • Community where users can share information or ask questions related to female health



Final Design







Research

Desk Research

Every month, 1.8 billion people across the world mentruate according to Unicef. As period supplies like tampons and sanitary towels are necessity for women, it is taxed in many countries with the name of “tampon tax.”

It is no exception for developed countries. In fact, the stigma of menstruation remains even in more advanced nations. I have found:

  • In the UK, 1 in 10 girls can’t afford to buy menstrual products.
  • In USA, 1 in 5 teens have missed class because they don’t have access to menstrual products.
  • In South Korea, girls were found to be using the insoles of shoes in place of sanitary napkin.




Market Analysis

To address the issue from my end, I conducted market research on how different organizations are contributing to tackle the period poverty.

  • Period. is a global nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting period poverty and stigma by youth-led movement, product distribution, and policy advocacy. 
  • Aunt Flow is a social enterprise that provides free-vend menstrual product dispensers and sustainable period products for schools, businesses, and public spaces. 
  • Always You app by Always donates period products based on users’ engagement - registration, period log, or interaction.





Problem Identification

With various approaches to solve the issue - period supply drive, free product dispenser, and donation - I have discovered issues from current solution:

  • There’s no connection between donors and donees at all, which is a significant factor of highlighting the importance of consistency
  •  There’s physical boundaries even though it is a global issue around the world





Design Process

Ideation

After identifying problems that current solution have, I came up with a solution to close the both gaps - a period tracker app as a primary platform with an additional feature to donate products or cash.

According to BMC Women’s Health,  unpredicted nature of periods and common experience of not having a menstrual product available when needed resulted in the culture of product sharing.

I focused on this common experience and designed an app to trigger users of bonding experience as well as sense of community by sharing.




User Persona

Based on the donation system, we set two separate user personas - supporter who take interest in period poverty issue and donate & supportee who is looking for help to get period supplies.

With details in our user persona, we were able to thoroughly create the system that both target users can be benefited from.



Information Architecture





Wireframes





Usability Friction Points

From prior research, we have identified the consistent drop-out of donors. According to Fundraising Effectiveness Project:

  • Around 23% of donors churn just six months after their first donation, which means almost 70% of donors give only once to an organization

Top three reasons donors drop out giving are:

  • Not being thanked for a previous gift
  • Not being asked to donate again
  • Lack of communication about the impact of one’s donation

To prevent these common friction points from donation system, we have added features to strengthen emotional connection between donors and donees.






Solution

Key Feature 1


Community
Safe space for users to share their cocerns or questions about female health creates bonds and strengthens the sense of belonging.

The brand’s verified articles help users to gain accurate knolwedge about reproductive health.


Key Feature 2


Period Calendar
Track period cycle and record physical and emotional symptoms to identify own patterns about period dates, blood flow, and various symptoms including mood swings and food craving.


Key Feature 3


Donation
Donate cash or items to users nearby.

With enough communication about their status and thank you message afterwards, users are constantly motivated to engage with donation, which creates a sustainable donation system within the app.





Branding








Outcome

Results

Fortunately, our team won junior prize in Red Dot Award !



Key Takeaways

As a team lead and a UX designer who first came up with initial idea and concept, I have gained valuable insights and knowledge through the design process. Some of the key things I have learned include:

  • The first ideas for the app are only the beginning of the process
  • Peer feedback influences each iteration of the app’s design


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