In spring of 2017 (March – June), I was part of a directed research group in the Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) department. I worked with PhD candidate Sarah Fox and a few other undergraduate students to develop a design workshop with the goal of exploring ways to improve the space of menstrual hygiene.

My largest role in the project was in logistics and for testing. I was responsible for securing venues and inviting people to participate in our workshop. In addition, I lead our pilot versions of the workshop to test the timing and effectiveness of the planned activities.

Workshop Outlines

1. Icebreaker – Hygiene Map
2. Introductions – Individuals say name and experiences/interest with menstrual hygiene
3. Ideation – Brainstorm ways to help menstrual hygiene
4. Prototyping – Teams develop one of the ideas
5. Presentation – Each team presents their idea to other groups

Pilot Workshop Findings

1. Finding: Our description of the hygiene map wasn’t descriptive enough, as the participants weren’t sure whether we were looking for a geographical map of menstrual hygiene landmarks, or an abstract conceptual map.
   Solution: This exercise was updated to listing out menstrual hygiene resources. This remained vague enough that resources could mean physical objects or places, or education opportunities but it’s also specific enough to keep the participants focused.
2. Finding: Participants had interesting things to say about their experience with menstrual hygiene. Other participants could often relate, making the strangers more comfortable with each other.
   Solution: Devote more time to introductions because it’s important for people to be comfortable with each other to optimize collaboration
3. Finding: Participants weren’t sure what exactly they were ideating for. Additionally, some participants said they felt limited to think of ideas that could be implemented now.
   Solution: Starting in the second pilot, we started the ideation with the prompt of “What things would exist in an ideal world?”
4. Finding: Teams weren’t sure to what extent they were supposed to develop out their idea during prototyping.
   Solution: We moved our explanation for the presentation stage to the explanation for the prototyping. This explanation included questions of “Who are you designing for?” and “What would need to happen to implement this idea?” These questions are obvious to people within the HCDE major, but they were helpful to participants who are not.

View our final Workshop Booklet with all of these solutions implemented.