Leila Byron
Service Designer
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pillar

THESIS TOPIC:
Exploring the area of women's sexual health. Follow this blog for continued updates.

Initial brainstorming & Final concept

Having the opportunity to speak with Jeppe who works at Sex og Samfund, an educational and support service for sexual health in Copenhagen opened up the opportunities available here in Copenhagen, a summary of our interview is below.

JEPPE - SEXLINIEN MANAGER.

Friday, September 16th.

“These women are searching [for support] they don’t easily find a place... there was a place which closed also due to funds being withdrawn”
  • Follow up: The counseling services in place remain anonymous and are not dealt like therapy, as it is hard for them to ensure the same counselor follows up with the same person. Definitely a need for additional support.
  • Support: "Our counseling service is not a therapy""There is always a need for this kind of support.. Women here in Denmark have the right to have a conversation with their DR but of course it is medically focused"
  • Liberal Views: Denmark is quite liberal in regards to their "way of thinking about abortion in Denmark, it's not heavily charged with senses of guilt, of course it still can appear on a personal level."
  • Support Groups: "We have abortnet.dk which has some info there, but we have not set up support groups.. that may be something to follow up on but for some women we see just a single conversation might be enough for them". They used to have a therapist employed for more one on one support but have not had that for 10 years or so.

From his interview and the follow-up with the external examiners, there are two clear design challenge opportunities below.

disconnection

Challenge: Often women begin to feel less connected to their outside relationships, or sometimes even less connected to the baby, during post-partum meaning women feel both physically and emotionally isolated with no support. From the services available for the whole journey of pregnancy and abortion, nothing specific is set up to help support both parents during this time. Language is important. 

HOW MIGHT WE challenge the current healthcare system by connecting and SUPPORTing WOMEN AND MEN DURING the whole pregnancy.

First 100 days

Challenge: Societal perceptions of how you "should" act and be as a new mother and father (and also directly post abortion) adds additional unwanted pressure on an already unsure/unprepared individual period of time. The first 100 days are universally emotionally unstable and there is tendency to feel like they are 'uniquely failing' as there are no initiatives in place to intelligently handle this challenge. There is also a mixed feeling of when during this journey support should be offered and how; through peer-to-peer, from the health professionals, on demand/self served as their wants and needs shift over time.

HOW MIGHT We USE THE OPPORTUNITY OF THE FIRST '100 DAY' PERIOD, AS A WAY TO PROVIDE MORE SUPPORT for men/women who have experienced child-bearing, as their WANTS and NEEDS CHANGE OVER TIME.

Brainstorming

I had a total of 40 concepts that I then clustered in to 7 areas for me to continue to explore.

  • Milestone support
  • Sharing back
  • “Get it out there” mind-mapping
  • Anonymous support
  • Social Networking
  • Data matching
  • Reflection self-service

I have combined some of the areas that interested me and looking to develop each concept into a touchpoint to prototype around.

self-service / data matching

A lot of the women I have spoken to is this idea of not having their immediate family close by, in particular their mothers which is also addressing this idea of the expert used to be the immediate family when families all lived together and now instead this tension is between the new parents. So how can I design something that acts as a translator/‘window’ that connect people at the crucial times of need in an emotional and personalized way.

  • Explore the areas of struggle within the first 100 days
  • Facilitate connecting family and friends together through data at the right time
  • Focusing on using language as a way to prompt behaviors

“get it out there” / anon. support

When speaking to Jeppe from Sex go Samfund (educational dept) he said for some women having just one conversation anonymously is all they need, where as sometimes its more of a reoccurring support available.

  • Using anonymous ways for people to get the support
  • Facilitate connecting people together through data who has experienced the same journey
  • Awareness around the subject to challenge the taboo

final concept

“connecting and empowering 
people (first-time mothers as a pilot group) during a life changing experience (the 
first 100 days of child-bearing). 
By using a network to drive support, by connecting people (mothers) in the same experience.”

Fundamental principles:

  • Connecting people 1 step ahead of you, 1 step behind (timeline), balance incentive.
  • Connect by “likeness”.
  • Does the service self-identify or does the user identify e.g “I see from your data you are a first-time mother?” or “You are a first-time mother seeking others”
  • Decision making split; keeping the other branch in check, inclusion of all (Not alienating yourself with just the one direction)







Questions arising around the use of Data:

  • Looking at what kind of data is used to connect through “likeness”?
    e.g. Spotify/ last .fm/ dating apps
  • What are the differences in the data set amongst different user groups?
  • How will people be matched?
     
  • How can chatbots be used as a window and filter to support the networks?
  • How can chatbots be the voice of the healthcare system?
    Interesting way of balancing human Vs. computer interaction and informational Vs. emotional.

Service Blueprint V01

AWARE

Entryway through existing apps (FB messenger / whatsapp).

JOIN

Download the app: Diary approach, write down your concerns and worries.

USE

The bot will take an empathetic approach and direct you into the correct network (1 step ahead, 1 behind) and provide you with daily progress and reflections on yourself. Chatbot = learning from the network, provide more feedback to the user. It can provide a backtrack of history and personal progression. Also a predicted progression curve in check with others in your network. 

Continue

Once connected to the group, you will be able to provide advice to people younger experiencing the same as you, and gain help from older experiencing the same thing. Through prompts you will be asked to participate in giving advice and answer questions.

Leave

You will no longer use the service, although there may be a period of time that you do not 'need' the service and are inactive for some time.

To find out more:
- Initial Research Methods
- Design Challenge
- Initial In-Depth Interviews: Data Matching
- Experience Prototyping: Wrappers and Value Proposition 
- User Testing: Content and Conversational Style
- Building the back-end.
- Validated Concept
- Final Product: www.ourpillar.com

Leila Byron