The approach

The global COVID-19 pandemic presented a significant challenge to the design and delivery of the research. This required a creative and empathetic way to conduct the research safely and remotely. With the help of our global research team who worked around the world — and around the clock — we conducted the research on mobile devices. This method involved creating a community of people who engaged in the research via their mobile phone.

We used ThinkPlace’s leading-edge engagement platform, EnGauge, to engage 72 young Nigerian women across different age groups, locations and socio-economic groups. EnGauge is designed to send quests, ask questions, and then receive information back in real time from the participants. It allowed for a progressive story-telling process. For each week over a month participants received a new quest that gave them an opportunity to tell their everyday experience about their period, their life and the challenges they face in menstrual hygiene management. The information we received from the women was rich in imagery, stories and comments about their life, their world and what menstrual management means to them.

To uncover the insights for the project we applied the Social Ecological Model (SEM). The SEM provided framing to understand factors affecting menstrual hygiene management behaviour and helped present the dynamic interrelations among environmental factors, social, personal, and intrinsic factors. As the insights were generated these informed early identification of innovation opportunities. The findings were curated into empathy building tools such as consumer personas and journey maps to build a richer understanding of the consumer whom we are designing for, sharing and synthesising insights iteratively and in real time with the entire project team.