Fern is a device that helps women understand their cycle by analyzing their saliva to find out whether or not they’re currently ovulating. It’s a product that can be used by those that are avoiding pregnancy as well as those that are trying to get pregnant. So whether you’re planning to have a child or not, you can be in control.
in collaboration with Madelyn Principe, Amanda Hamlet, Brooke Jarrett, and Kate Heidenreich
Research
Fertility is the ability of a person to conceive children, while infertility is the inability to do so over a specified period of time (usually
1 year of trying) and is actually a common problem. This got us wondering what’s going on and what solutions were out there.
While birth rates overall have been declining, birth rates among women aged 35-44 are increasing. This illustrates a trend of women spending longer avoiding pregnancy before trying to conceive.
Fertility awareness, also known as Natural Family Planning, is a method of birth control that does not use any drugs.
The Fertility Awareness Method (FAM) is used both as a means of preventing pregnancy and as a way to target the most fertile time for getting pregnant.
There are currently only a few saliva testing products on the market, and they are all very similar to each other. This is the Geratherm, a product that is Health Canada approved with 98% accuracy. Like other saliva-testing products, it features a simple microscope and light.
Saliva can be used to test for the same hormones as urine tests. By viewing saliva through a microscope, users can determine if they are ovulating (fertile).
This is because the LH hormone is released in the days leading up to ovulation. In saliva, the LH hormone results in a "ferning" pattern in a dried saliva sample.
The Fertile Focus works the same way as the Geratherm, so our team purchased it and used it for a few days. The user experience quickly deteriorates, and determining your results is confusing.
IDEATION
After a collective brainstorm on the look and feel of the product, the team split into two focus groups: the physical component and the digital component. I headed the design of the digital component: an app that pairs with the physical product to easily track a woman's cycle.
We looked at existing women’s health apps to see what features they offered and which features made sense for us to include in our app, so our user could have the most data at her disposal.
After sketching app features, symbols, and layouts, wireframes were created using Figma.
pairing the
product & app
product tutorial
on the app
Final ModelS
Named after the pattern found in an ovulating woman's saliva, Fern is a device that helps women understand their cycle. It can be used by those that are avoiding pregnancy as well as those that are actively trying to get pregnant. Fern connects to an app to make tracking your cycle easy and informative, plus it includes a symptom tracker and analysis so you can access everything in one place.
We curated our own version of the System Usability Scale for UI testing and asked participants to rate on a scale of 1-5 their likelihood to use different components of our products. The scores below are averages from the 8 women we tested.
How likely are you to
Every screen available in the app:
