It’s been a fantastic semester working together as a team, with the wider studio, and with the Rice community. As we reached the end of the semester, we realized that from our testing we could not definitively say we had a prototype that improved on existing solutions. However, we realized we did have two things: Information about a variety of stakeholders working in the space of access of menstrual products, who were not all informed of the projects of the others, and not working in a coordinated manner. A wealth of data and user insights from our three rounds of … Continue reading Period: Final Review & Implementation

The results of our testing were essentially inconclusive. Over the course of the semester we have gathered a wealth of information, both from current stakeholders working in the menstrual product access space, as well as from interviews, three rounds of surveying, and in person user testing. We have important data and user insights, particularly in regards to the existence of the hidden user. However, we also found that feelings about menstrual products are highly individualized, that the existing solution in terms of the Rice Women’s Resource Center has some strengths, and there is desire for the Student Association’s in progress … Continue reading Period: Implement

The reframe step of the human-centered design process consists of highlighting measures of success, defining design goals, and narrowing our How Can We (HCW) statement. This design step is crucial to understanding exactly what we want to achieve from this project, ensuring all decisions we make are motivated by the valuable user insights collected. At the reframe OS, we focused on brainstorming various HCW statements driven from user insights identified below: 80% of our survey respondents menstruate monthly, and 67.2% can typically anticipate when their periods will start. 35.1% of respondents budget for purchasing menstrual products. “I would rather buy … Continue reading Period: Reframe

Because this project encompasses a broad, important issue, we expected other groups on campus to be working on a similar issue. As we began our research during Immerse, we came across multiple examples of solutions other universities had designed. For example, some had begun to unlock the menstrual product cabinets already in the bathrooms, while others distributed period products in all binary bathrooms. During this stage, we also uncovered the Student Association at Rice had made significant strides in this area. They are planning to unlock cabinets already installed on-campus and already made arrangements with the previous supplier to keep … Continue reading Period: Mid-Term Recess

From our insights (generated from a survey with 140 responses, as well as six in-person user interviews) we have created two user personas. The first is the more typically visible user: The Situational User. This user is a Rice Student that typically menstruates monthly and can usually predict when it will start, but not always. They think menstrual products should be free, but doesn’t feel financially burdened by purchasing products & doesn’t budget for them. They also care about product quality (they don’t like tampons with cardboard applicators or thick pads), and as such they would rather buy themselves a … Continue reading Period: Immerse

During our “Identify” week we worked to understand further understand our users, stakeholders, and overall experience of accessing menstrual products on campus. This process began by breaking down our project’s question of: How Can We increase accessibility to period products for menstruating people on Rice’s campus? We began our session by coming up with key questions and guidelines we wanted to further understand about our project, including: increase by how much/how do we measure success; Does ‘people on Rice’s campus’ just mean undergrads, and where on rice campus should we be focusing? From these more broad questions, we began to … Continue reading Period: Identify

Our team is working with Period at Rice/BCM this semester to help improve accessibility of menstrual products for people who menstruate on Rice’s campus. We’re interested to explore the different aspects of accessibility this semester, whether that’s financial, physical, situational, or other aspects of accessibility we haven’t considered yet. Ultimately, we hope to use design to help Period advance their goals of ending period stigma and increasing access to period products in the most effective way possible. So far, we have started research into existing solutions in this space and will be meeting with our Community Partner this week to … Continue reading Introduction: period.