Clue S.O.S

Clue S.O.S is a

feature

for the menstrual tracking app

Clue.

It aims to create a community for women who are on their period and need emergency menstrual products.

Roles:

User research, visual design, UX design

Tools:

Adobe Illustrator, Sketch

Duration:

3 weeks

Process

User Research

I lead a series of interviews with

5 women

to gain a holistic understanding of their experiences with periods. Our team then synthesized the information we gathered from the interviews and began identifying trends and possible design opportunities.

The research showed that women's frustrations regarding periods revolve largely around

lack of control.

Common issues specifically mentioned in the interviews included:

Cycles Begin Unpredictably

Many women reported feeling frustrated by the unpredictable nature of periods. They wanted to feel in control of their period.

PMS Occurs Without Warning

Uncomfortable, painful and unpredictable PMS symptoms often called for sudden changes in their plans and routines.

The research insights showed that women need a platform that allows them to feel more in control during their periods:

Design opportunity

Create opportunities for women to have more control over their periods and menstrual health.

Proposed Idea

Being stranded without menstrual supplies when your cycle begins is an extremely stress inducing situation. Women in this situation described feeling "annoyed and helpless". Clue S.O.S gives women the option to tap into Clue's network and ask other users for help.

The video shows Clue S.O.S's

core task flow

for sending an S.O.S.

Based on the exploratory research findings, we proposed two additional features

Clue Journal

Clue Journal allows women to record their period symptoms and activities that may cause or exasperate them within the app.

Clue Forum

A social forum within Clue where women can talk about sexual health topics, explore what other women experience and educate themselves about their own sexual health.

Why We Chose Clue S.O.S

Clue Forum and Clue Journal would only cater to Clue users who experience strong PMS symptoms. Clue S.O.S on the other hand addresses frustrations of women both with and without PMS symptoms. We decided to design for Clue S.O.S because it would have an larger scope of impact.

Clue S.O.S's core task flow

Secondary Features

Global S.O.S

Users can turn on the Global S.O.S feature to seek help from clue users that may not be in their friend list if need be. They can also search for specific people in their lists.

Image of the task flow that allows users to send a Global S.O.S

Sending an S.O.S to Multiple People

Users can send an S.O.S to multiple people at a time by tapping and holding on a person's name and selecting them. The state of the life raft changes to a tick to let the user know that their S.O.S has been accepted.

Task flow that allows users to send S.O.S's to multiple people

Reflection

Giving Context Without Creating Bias

When interviewing women about their experiences with periods, I assumed that it made sense to provide context regarding what we were doing. Doing so unprepared for the first interview planted a seed of

bias

where the woman felt compelled to say what I wanted to hear.

Moving forward, I made sure to use a more thought out script to give the interviewees more context.