Reimagining hormone tracking : A feminist exploration of designing an empowering community

Sammanfattning: This study explores the possibility of designing an empowering community on a hormone-tracking application. I hereby draw inspiration from the ethos of the radical consciousness-raising groups of the 1970s to move away from the traditional individualistic approach to hormonal health. The study adopts a research-through-design approach that integrates a combination of sensitizing user engagement, somaesthetics and speculative design. By conducting interviews centred on individuals’ lived experiences surrounding hormonal health and a design workshop that emphasises collaboration and inclusion in the design process, I discuss the potential for creating a digital community that promotes a holistic and collectivist perspective for hormone-tracking applications. The aim is not to make users reliant on the community to give them knowledge. Rather, the community should enable users to collectively create a consciousness around their hormonal health and use this to empower them to better understand their hormones. The findings highlight that the design should be guided by the principles of connecting only a few people that share similar experiences and have different levels of knowledge to establish genuine human connections and collectively construct hormonal consciousness. Lastly, our study concludes that akin to the women’s health movement, the act of bringing together a group of people to discuss their health and bodies is in itself an empowering and inspiring act that fosters a sense of community.