Meet Cathy - Birth Control User

Cathy is a 35-year old women working as a hairstylist in Chicago. She has gone through 4 different kinds of birth control (BC) methods since the age of 22. The most recent switch is due to high blood pressure that can be related to her BC. She is annoyed about the irregular period due to the new BC. Thus, she is now thinking to switch BC again. She is active on social media looking for suggestions.

Meet Tanya - Gynecologist

Tanya is a gynecologist serving in a city college in Rochester. She has a set of physical models of different BC to explain to her patients during BC appointments. She is aware of her own bias and thus she makes sure she is not deciding for her patients. She is also aware that there is little medical research in minimizing the trail and error process. She says, "you can literally throw a dart to decide."

Insight 1: Impersonal Information

Patients research BC methods through a variety of sources, but few of them are both personal & reliable. Information from the family can be more personal but less reliable than information from a doctor. In doctor appointments, patients expect a more thorough screening process to select a BC method based on personal needs and health conditions.

Insight 2: Trial & Error

Patients become frustrated with the slow speed of the trial-and-error that goes into finding the best BC because they must wait for the body to adjust to a new method before evaluating its effectiveness.

Opportunity Area 1:
What if BC info is personalized?

1. How might we filter out unreliable or irrelevant BC info?

2. How might we intake info from users and present personalized BC info?

3. How might we utilize users' needs & health conditions to provide more personal BC info?

Opportunity Area 2:
What if there is a clinical screening?

1. How might we leverage data science to turn millions of personal BC stories into useful info?

2. How might we leverage existing tech like hormone tests to reduce the trial & error process?

3. How might we better understand the possibilities of having certain BC side effects to prevent the trial & error process for users?