Case Study: Flo Redesign
Redesigned a feature within Flo to make the experience of tracking menstrual cycles authentic, informational, and personal for the user.
What is Flo?
Flo is a menstrual app that helps a user keep track of their menstrual cycles. It has several features that prepare a woman for their period, symptoms, and some insightful information regarding women’s health. I iterated on one of the features to create a more authentic, personal experience for the user. Below are the features that currently exist.
Features
01
“Today” - Lets the user know where they are at in terms of their menstruation cycle as well as collects data from the user such as physical symptoms, exercising data, and emotional symptoms.
02
“Health Insights” - Gives insightful tips for women such as cycle phases and periods, reproductive health and care, nutrition, and weight loss.
03
“Secret Chats” - A platform for the user to chat with others on certain topics around women’s health. There is also interactive questions and polls for the user to engage with.
The Focus
"TODAY" FEATURE
I wanted to really work on making the whole entire app personalized and informative. I loved the “Health Insights” and “Secret Chats” feature and wanted to work on making the “Today” feature just as intuitive and accommodating
Role
UX Research and UX Design
Timeline
1 month (September 2020)
Team
Adobe XD
Tools Used
Personal Project
Design Process
"TODAY" FEATURE
01
User Research
02
Sketch & Wireframing
03
Design Iterations
User Research
RESEARCH & SURVEY
I created and launched a survey to about 10 women, varying ages to understand general expectations, needs, and wants as well as their experience with period tracking. I followed up with 5 women to conduct moderated interviews to dig deeper into their experience and insight while using such apps. I wanted to understand how the app can be improved to better suit their needs.
01
Competitive Research
Who are my major competitors?
Clue
A menstruation application that tracks your menstruation cycle and predicts your next period. You can track your health habits (eating, exercising, and mental health)
P Tracker
A menstruation application that also tracks your menstruation. You can enter in your information and notes about your activities and well being.
Birth Control
Women often rely on their birth control medication to keep track of their period based on taking certain pills each day. It is solely for making sure you get your period every month and on the exact day.
Why Did I Choose Flo?
Flo had the basics that every other period application had (period tracker and health notetaking). Yet, it also has insightful and interactive features that help make the user feel comfortable like chatting and resources to guide a user through their menstruation. It is almost the perfect app.
02
Survey Sample Questions
Why do you use Flo?
What do you like to see in Today’s feature?
Are you prepared for your next period?
Do you report symptoms and can you rely on these reports for your future periods?
Gather & Summarize
In my user research and need-finding process, I took the information that I received and built some low-fidelity user personas that generalized the target population of the people who would use this application. By creating some sample user personas, it guided me in a better direction when it came to designing.
03
User Personas
Meet Julie, a 18-year-old woman, who struggles with a normal period. Her doctor asks how long has it been since her last period and her previous cycles. She wants to track her period and her past periods to see the gap between each cycle. She struggles with remembering her past periods since she is irregular.
Meet Sarina, a 25-year-old woman, who has regular menstrual cycles. Her frustration is tracking symptoms, duration of period, and the number of days before her next period. She is a scheduler and needs to plan around her period to prepare for future events and vacations.
Design Process
SKETCH & WIREFRAME
After some user research, I decided to redesign the way Flo conveys the features, but not the features themselves. I made it easier and accessible for a user to extract their personal data to plan and report their menstrual cycles.
01
My Designs will include...
See past periods and the details more visibly
Report symptoms and medication
How many days until your next period?
Regular, Irregular, or Somewhat Regular Cycle Report
02
Ideation & Wireframes
At first glance, I thought a lot of features could be re-evaluated, but I realized how important the other features in Flo were based on my research. The only feature I actually needed to change was “Today”.
I sketched out a new version that focused on redesigning the layout of a user’s profile and past period data. I made all the information more accessible and visible for the user.
03
Mid-Fidelity Designs
I took my low fidelity designs to the Adobe XD file and designed a more realistic version. I had several iterations, in which I incorporated all the different aspects I wanted to include:
02
Cycle Tracking (What Day?)
03
Review Past Periods
01
Reporting Symptoms
04
Final Iteration
These are my final iterations for the redesign of “Today’s Feature” and make it more visible and comfortable for a user. It is more in sync with the rest of Flo’s amazing features and users can finally view all crucial information all in one, organized place.
The user is able to start/stop period
The user can see previous periods and it's a detailed history
Status of Period & Edit Period(s)
Period Reporting
To keep track of your period, the user can report their own symptoms and medication during their period. They can view this at any time whenever the user wants to.
Log & End Period
Added a custom button to end and start a user’s period to make it visually clear and informative. In later iterations, I would like to work integrating an editing version where a user can go back and edit their periods.
Conclusion
FUTURE
There are multiple iterations and future designs that I would like to work to make this feature even more enhanced such as prediction notifications and advanced editing features. From doing this case study, I realized how much detail and emphasis certain features of an app can impact a user. It is important to have a well-rounded application and I wanted to contribute to that by designing a new edition to Flo.