UterUs

Map page to see nearby period activity
Feed page to check up on your friends
Community page to have open discussions about menstruation
Profile page to centralize your personal updates
Add where and when you bleed
Report where you find public period products

Inspiration

We wanted to create an app that would allow users to track their periods in a fun and interactive way. As people who experience menstruation, we understand how obtaining period products is not always easy or accessible. Therefore, we wanted to promote period equity in the app by allowing those who experience periods to support and help each other in finding free period products. We also wanted to remove the stigma surrounding periods by promoting open conversation about real issues that result from periods.

What it does

UterUs allows users to track their periods and record the locations at which they menstruate, as well as show where free period products can be found in public (which can be continuously updated by users). The UterUs app fosters a supportive and inclusive community where users can interact with one another to ask questions, give updates, and share information.

How we built it

After initial discussion and brainstorming, we started drafting our ideas in a Figma file. It was essential for us that our app has a great UX design to suit the needs of our target demographic. We turned to existing apps for inspiration and tried to incorporate the sharing aspect with the local community of people who experience menstruation. From there, we tweaked and refined our app layout to optimize our performance and user experience. Our next steps would be to code and publish the app.

Challenges we ran into

One aspect of our app that we struggled to balance was its UX design aligning with our app’s goals. It was important to us that the app was user-friendly and made for an efficient experience, especially given the fast moving pace of UterUs’ demographic. Our app’s value stems from interactions between the community members, so our UX design revolves around this value. First, how do we facilitate these interactions? And secondly, how can we do so in a user-friendly manner? We were inspired by other apps that have a proven track record of success, such as PoopMap and Strava. These apps provide their users the opportunity to post, comment, and like one another posts.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud to openly celebrate menstruation. Society tends to view menstruation as “gross” and “taboo” even though it’s a natural process that many people experience. Many individuals still don’t understand what menstruation is since it’s poorly taught along with the rest of sex education. By normalizing menstruation, we can reach a more inclusive and accepting society, one where people don’t have to pass period products around in secret and are #ProudToBleed.

What we learned

For some of us, this was the first time participating in a hackathon. We previously thought hackathons were purely coding and since many of us have minimal/no coding experience, we were worried that we would not be able to create anything. However, after working through this project, we had a great time brainstorming and implementing our ideas as a team. We are very proud of our creation and feel that the app will be beneficial for many individuals.