Digital Women’s Health
– Designing Technology for Menarche, Menstrual Cycles and Menopause
Date and time: Thursday 11 June 2020, 12pm – 1pm
Speaker: Marianela Ciolfi Felice and Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard
Recorded presentation: https://vimeo.com/431378663
Presentation material: Digital Women’s Health (pdf 7.4 MB)
Abstract: Women’s health and intimate care are still today often ignored areas of health, reflecting gender inequalities that exist at a global scale. Its digitalisation is a promising yet under-explored path to support the development of a rich and healthy life, with the potential of producing significant societal impact. By designing with women and with care for the body, we aim to raise awareness and create novel interactions for key bodily transitions. We address this research agenda by rethinking the role that digital technologies may play in supporting women’s health. Through our research, we design body-centric technologies to encourage and sustain body knowledge and curiosity, and we develop methods to design for sensitive and tabooed areas. In this talk, we outline our approach to bring positive change to the design, development and evaluation of digital technologies for women’s health. We illustrate it through our latest work around key bodily events and transitions in women’s lives, including menarche, menstrual cycles, and menopause.
Bios: Dr. Marianela Ciolfi Felice is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Interaction Design at EECS, KTH. Her research on digital women’s health explores the intersection between Feminist Human-Computer Interaction and Soma Design, currently focusing on menopause and reproductive health. Previously, she specialised on participatory design and creativity support, obtaining a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Université Paris-Saclay.
Dr. Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Interaction Design at EECS, KTH. Her research explores the design of digital technologies for women’s health. She has a Ph.D. in Interaction Design from Aarhus University, and has been a visiting researcher at Umeå Institute of Design and Kyoto Design Lab. She has expertise in research through design, design fiction, participatory design, soma design and feminist HCI. Søndergaard’s research has been published and received Best Paper awards at international HCI and design journals and conferences. Her design work has been exhibited and featured in European design magazines and festivals. Website: https://mljuul.com/