Prioritizing User Needs to Accelerate Contraceptive Innovation

Catapult Design partnered with local design studios and the Gates Foundation, to employ a design approach that generates new possibilities to address the sexual and reproductive health needs of underserved women, including non-hormonal contraceptives. As the project’s program manager, Laura coordinated design and technical partners across locations in Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, India and U.S., as well as the development of a research platform to account for and analyze the perspectives of women in these communities.

Cross-Functional Skills

  • Data Analysis

  • Journey Mapping

  • Market Segmentation Research

  • Project manager and Partner scouting 

  • Research Platform Development

  • Storytelling

  • Wireframing and Prototyping

Thematic Area

  • Design — Global Health, Sexual, and Reproductive Health

Project Overview

Our team conducted research with nearly 1,000 participants, which produced 475,000 insightful data points. Laura contributed to the analysis of this data using population-based segmentation to provide key insights that informed product development. Through firsthand accounts of women in our intended communities and these insights, we were able to ensure the platform's design met both technical and user experience requirements for our partners. Additional contributions include overseeing the documentation process and the use of visual and narrative storytelling to communicate findings and resonate with our project audience effectively. Key stages of the project included:

  • Leading Local: Identification of right-fit partners and local design teams to drive the in-context research and synthesis of a structure that scales up to national analysis and global learnings

  • Journey Mapping: Identification of patterns revealed by data from the in-context research with Women of Reproductive Age (WRAs) who identify key inflection points and interdependencies in a user’s decision-making journey

  • Prototyping: Concept creation set in-context to illustrate the preferred attribute combinations and the new user experiences

  • Deploying Strategic Frameworks: Visualization of decision-making frameworks driven by user insights through storytelling and value proposition summaries to assist in Gates Foundation product development investments

Project Outcomes and Disclaimer

Due to the confidential nature of this project, I'm happy to share more details in person or over a video call. Simply let me know!

Other Selected Work