For this blog, we explore some of the UX trends in FemTech over the past few years. We highlight three key ways FemTech is evolving, along with changes we hope to see in the future.

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Online education provides the foundation for FemTech.

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Education has become an integral part of the design process when developing a successful FemTech product or service.

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Historically, shame and stigma have shaped our understandings of women’s health, leading to misinformation and a lack of education. This means that today, FemTech companies face the challenge of educating on the problem in order to effectively share their solution.

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Online health education allows brands to position themselves as pillars of expertise and hubs for community. This requires strong UX research to help identify information gaps, where they lie and how best to approach them for specific users.

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A good example of how education is shaping FemTech development is the growing awareness of how language shapes our perceptions and experiences of health. Re-educating on the terminology used to discuss women’s health allows brands to build an inclusive identity and resonate with their users.

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Home-based healthcare is becoming the gold standard.

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The increase in at-home healthcare solutions in FemTech is a clear example of how brands are working hard to put their users at the centre of decision-making.

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When it comes to navigating in-person healthcare, women are often forced to navigate appointment logistics, childcare, cost and medical gaslighting - with people of colour facing additional barriers to quality care.

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A shift towards home-based healthcare takes users’ lifestyles into consideration and prioritises their experience. Brands are thinking critically about how their product fits into women’s lives, not the other way around. It also encourages a strong element of consumer choice - encouraging users to engage with products that they personally relate to; one that speaks to their values and fits seamlessly into their life.

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FemTech is working to reject the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach that previously gripped the women’s health sector. Instead, it embraces the increasingly wide range of people and their unique needs, allowing FemTech to become an exciting and deeply diverse industry.

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Wearable technology allows for more integrated care.

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Across both FemTech and wider digital health sectors, there has been a noticeable increase in wearable devices used to track vital health indicators.

When products like the Apple Watch and Fitbit were first released, they claimed to be the most advanced wearable technology for tracking all aspects of your health - yet they failed to take women’s menstrual cycles into account, leaving a huge data gap for half of their users.

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More recently, things have changed and brands are increasingly recognising the central role of hormones in wider health outcomes. The ability to track something as complex as the menstrual cycle with such ease is both exciting and innovative. This method of unconscious data collection can ultimately lead to more conscious health decision-making.

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Combining data collection with wearable technology allows us to understand the relationship between different elements of health - building a more interconnected and detailed picture of overall well-being.

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What we’d like to see in the future of UX in FemTech:

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We love seeing progress in all aspects of women’s health - but we’re particularly interested in how FemTech apps collect, present and share their data. Here are two UX trends we’re excited to see more of in the future:

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1. The opportunity to share data across multiple FemTech apps.

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Just as women’s health is broad and multidimensional - we believe the data should be too. As each app gathers data points on different health indicators, across different user groups - there’s huge potential here to build a more interconnected database of women’s health research. Data sharing is an exciting opportunity but it should be approached with caution, ensuring users are aware of how their data is used with the ability to customise their preferences.

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2. Making data more engaging & accessible for users.

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The data collected by FemTech apps is incredibly beneficial for shaping design and development - but it can also benefit users directly. Good UX research can help identify how best to present data in engaging and accessible ways, creating maximum impact for both brands and users.

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Thinking about what’s next in UX for your company?

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Check out how Workie Ticket can support you in your UX research - with top tips in our blog, research study packages and tailored support.

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