Human Centered Design to understand the uses and needs of menstrual health in Senegal

Context and design challenge

In Senegal, most young girls are not well prepared for their first period. The difficulties they encounter stem mainly from:

• the weight of taboos – In the family and social circle, menstruation is often seen as something dirty and shameful.
• Young women don’t know who to talk to when they have questions.  The attitude of those around them makes them feel insecure: they don’t dare discuss these subjects with them.  So they prefer to talk about it with their friends – which can create a risk of transmitting beliefs and information that are often incorrect.
• Difficulty to access information about the menstrual cycle.
• Lack of access to quality, affordable menstrual protection.
• a lack of decent, safe toilets in public places, including schools
• a lack of information and services to help manage the pain and discomfort associated with the menstrual cycle.

With the aim of better supporting young women through this very important stage of their lives, the social enterprise ApiAfrique , founded in 2017, has made menstrual cycle management a priority by developing:

• a range of healthy and sustainable hygiene products for women and babies – in particular menstrual pads and organic cotton washable baby nappies.
• the menstrual cycle information program “Break the Cycle”

The lack of access to accurate and reliable information about the menstrual cycle and the difficulty of predicting the onset of periods and preparing for them are key issues. Logically, given the use of digital tools by this target group, the focus has shifted towards the creation of a mobile application that is more accessible to young girls.

With this in mind, in 2021, ApiAfrique, in its desire to better reach young women, established a partnership with IT4Life, a digital service company that supports social economy organisations in their digital transformation. Together, they contacted YUX, a pan-African design and research agency, to form a consortium with the Dakar Institute of Technologie and IDinsight. This consortium won the Botnar Foundation’s “Fit for the future 2021” call for projects to scale up the program initiated by ApiAfrique.

From there, the process of creating tailored, human-centred solutions was launched. This article describes the human-centred design approach, coordinated by YUX , for the change of scale of Break the Cycle.

The Human Centered Design approach

YUX, whose ambition is to democratize design and co-create digital products and services adapted to the diversity of African users, has implemented the Human Centered Design (HCD) approach with the following guiding principles :

• an iterative methodology
• involving multidisciplinary teams
• guided by the explicit understanding of users
• human-centered evaluation.

The HCD applied in the Break the Cycle project took place in the following stages:

1.Planning

In human-centered research, one of the crucial phases is planning. This is when the timeline and logistics of the project are decided with the consortium. This is when the core project team is identified and tasks and dependencies between teams are assigned. This is also the time to discuss the different channels of communication for collaboration, as well as deadlines and deliverables. If neglected, this stage can have serious consequences for the progress of the project.

2.Exploration

The main research issue was to understand how young women manage their menstrual cycle, the factors influencing this management and the impact on their lives. The research was carried out using a format of individual, non-directive interviews. 

We conducted 12 interviews lasting about an hour with 6 young women aged between 15 and 20 and 6 others aged between 21 and 24, all of whom were literate and educated. The interviews were conducted between Dakar and Mbour. 

To put the young women at ease, we created a ‘safe space’, a place where people can feel comfortable and confident to talk about subjects that interest them. Every effort is made to establish a climate of mutual trust, and the choice of environment is certainly important, but more than that, the people with whom the target group will be interacting must be hand-picked. In this “safe space”, the young women were able to decide on the various subjects they wished to discuss in confidence – subjects of particular concern to them.

The time spent welcoming them, putting them at ease, introducing the subject and the purpose of the interviews was of vital importance in building the young women’s confidence and willingness to make the subject their own. 

The aim of the interviews was to establish themes while following the natural impulse of the young women to tell us what was important to them. We began by looking at the general profile of the young woman, her family background and her use of digital technology. Next, we guided her through the memories of her first period: whether or not she had been prepared for it, identifying her circle of trust and knowing what information was important to her at this stage. 

Finally, we looked at how she currently manages her menstrual health, focusing on her preferred sources of information and people she trusts. From there, we listed the different types of information and the most appropriate formats for transmitting them.