Do hugely popular menstruation tracking apps help their users?

College of Humanities and Social Sciences researchers Professors Sarah Riley and Christine Stephens, Associate Professors Tracy Morison, Natasha Tassell-Matamua and Dr Siobhán Healy-Cullen, alongside an international team of researchers, are conducting research into how MTAs are experienced by users, and how users, in turn, are shaped by the technology.

Their three-year Marsden funded project focuses on users at three different life stages; teenagers starting their periods; people who have recently given birth, and those experiencing perimenopause.

Dr Healy-Cullen explains that most of these apps are built around a narrow idea of the “typical” user.

“Most apps are designed assuming the user is a young, white, heterosexual, cisgender, able-bodied woman, with a regular, predictable cycle, who is trying to get pregnant. That leaves out a lot of people’s experiences and needs,” Dr Healy-Cullen says.

The team wants to understand how these apps are experienced by the many users whose bodies, identities, or life stages sit outside these narrow parameters.

The team’s research so far into the experiences of those who have had a baby, or who are experiencing perimenopause, have indicated a number of consistent issues with MTA’s. These include;

• The emotional toll of MTAs: Some participants described stress, alienation, and emotional fatigue, often linked to the apps’ demands for constant data entry, unexplained “failures” (such as not conceiving), and the lack of meaningful follow-up or support.
• Reproductive focus: Most MTAs are obsessed with sex and pregnancy! For some users, this is useful. But it was stigmatising for those who weren’t, or couldn’t, try for a baby. And those who had used MTAs to help get pregnant, felt “dropped” by their app the moment the baby arrived. Perimenopausal users were treated as anomalies, their experiences “othered” or ignored.
• Mistrust: Many participants turned to MTAs because they wanted to have data to “prove” themselves. This, because they didn’t trust the health system, citing experiences of fatphobia, sexism, dismissal, and “pale, male, stale doctors”. But trust in the MTAs was also shaky. People worried about who was using their data and for what purpose, particularly given the U.S. legal context and challenges to reproductive rights.
• Exclusions and misfitting: The design norms of these apps remain exclusionary, overlooking diverse needs and bodily experiences. Participants called for inclusive, ethical, and free MTAs that support a much wider range of menstrual lives.

Together, with participants, the research team have developed a better understanding of the appeal and the challenges of these apps, and how we might reimagine this technology to meet the needs of people with diverse bodies, identities, and lives.

“We’re not saying these apps can’t be experienced as empowering, or that people shouldn’t use them. We’re saying let’s design them in ways that are inclusive, transparent and responsive to the realities of different bodies and lives,” Professor Riley says.

The research team hope their findings will help guide the development of apps that protect privacy, provide credible, local health information, and better serve all users — not just a select few.

“Our goal is to amplify the voices of people whose experiences have been sidelined in current app design. Menstrual tracking should be empowering for everyone” adds Prof Riley.

Get involved: Your story matters

Are you 16–18 years old and use a period tracking app? The research team are currently calling for teenagers to share what it’s like using these apps at the beginning of the menstruating journey. If you know someone in this age group, or want to follow the project’s progress, please visit their website.