Woman-Centered Design through Humanity, Activism, and Inclusion

Women account for over half of the global population, however, continue to be subject to systematic and systemic disadvantage, particularly in terms of access to health and education. At every intersection, where systemic inequality accounts for greater loss of life or limitations on full and healthy living, women are more greatly impacted by those inequalities. The design of technologies is no different, the very definition of technology is historically cast in terms of male activities, and advancements in the field are critical to improve women's quality of life. This article views HCI, a relatively new field, as well positioned to act critically in the ways that technology serve, refigure, and redefine women's bodies. Indeed, the female body remains a contested topic, a restriction to the development of women's health. On one hand, the field of women's health has attended to the medicalization of the body and therefore is to be understood through medical language and knowledge. On the other hand, the framing of issues associated with women's health and people's experiences of and within such system(s) remain problematic for many. This is visible today in, e.g., socio-cultural practices in disparate geographies or medical devices within a clinic or the home. Moreover, the biological body is part of a great unmentionable, i.e., the perils of essentialism. We contend that it is necessary, pragmatically and ethically, for HCI to turn its attention toward a woman-centered design approach. While previous research has argued for the dangers of gender-demarcated design work, we advance that designing for and with women should not be regarded as ghettoizing, but instead as critical to improving women's experiences in bodily transactions, choices, rights, and access to and in health and care. In this article, we consider how and why designing with and for woman matters. We use our design-led research as a way to speak to and illustrate alternatives to designing for and with women within HCI.QC 20200930</p

Designing with Intimate Materials and Movements: Making “Menarche Bits”

 Menarche is the first occurrence of menstrual bleeding and it usually begins between the ages of 9–15. This makes menarche a crucial transition among other social, physiological and behavioural changes during puberty. In this soma-based research-through-design project we design an open-ended prototyping kit: Menarche Bits. The aim of Menarche Bits is to open a design space for young adolescents to create body-worn technologies that support them in making space for their experiences of menarche and trusting their menstruating bodies. Menarche Bits consists of heat elements and shape-changing actuators that can be worn directly on the body by adhering to the skin or being inserted into pockets in a stretchable fabric as part of a garment. We describe the soma design process behind Menarche Bits as an example of how body-worn technologies can intimately interact with the body and its movement, temporality and material changes.QC 20200511</p

Touching and Being in Touch with the Menstruating Body

We describe a Research through Design project—Curious Cycles—a collection of objects and interactions which encourage people to be in close contact with their menstruating body. Throughout a full menstrual cycle, five participants used Curious Cycles to look at their bodies in unfamiliar ways and to touch their bodily fluids, specifically, menstrual blood, saliva, and cervical mucus. The act of touching and looking led to the construction of new knowledge about the self and to a nurturing appreciation for the changing body. Yet, participants encountered and reflected upon frictions within themselves, their home, and their social surroundings, which stem from societal stigma and preconceptions about menstruation and bodily fluids. We call for and show how interaction design can engage with technologies that mediate self-touch as a first step towards reconfiguring the way menstruating bodies are treated in society.This is a pre-print of the paper to be published at CHI 2020. QCR 20200121</p