COMMUNITY PANELS FOR GLOBAL HEALTH
Gender Equality Design Labs
A scalable mixed-methods research model with local partners in Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal running multilingual panels which keep lived experience central to reproductive health innovation. The Labs create a continuous feedback loop for funders to test hypotheses, compare markets, and move from signal to action faster by prioritizing the right interventions and reducing risk.
Next Project >
- Catapult Design (in my role as Senior Designer)
- Dodo Design, Nigeria
- CcHub, Nigeria
- Spindle Design, Kenya
- YUX Design, Senegal
- Ooloi Labs - Dots
- Paukwa House
- Gates Foundation
The Challenge
The challenge of non-hormonal contraceptive (NHC) innovation isn’t just about developing a new product—it’s about shifting the way products are designed altogether. Too often, women of reproductive age (WRAs) are treated as a homogenous group, and product decisions overlook the realities of women’s lives—behaviors,
emotions, relationship
dynamics, and cultural beliefs
that are impacted by the use
of the contraceptive method. How might we move beyond one-size-fits-all solutions to design non-hormonal contraceptives that truly align with womens’ diverse needs, vulnerabilities, and contexts?
Beyond One Size Fits All aims to bridge this gap by creating options that reflect WRAs’ changing priorities, fostering shared understanding between users and developers, and presenting concepts through value propositions and decision-making journeys that connect lived experience to product design.
Participants
We employed the Pathways Vulnerability Segmentation to recruit research participants, ensuring that our findings are representative and can be extrapolated to the broader population both within and across countries. Our study exclusively focused on women of reproductive ages, defined as between the ages of 18–49 years who are current users (including switchers and multi-method users) and non-users (including never-users and discontinuers) of modern female contraceptive methods who want to avoid pregnancy.
In total, our work engaged 1,062 participants across 53 urban and peri-urban locations in Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal, with more than 1,100 hours of interviews recorded.
Our Approach
Our design process was structured to move from in-context research to system-level insights. Local design studios in Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal facilitated the work on the ground, and our collaboration with the Gates Foundation ensured findings could be scaled globally. This iterative approach connected women’s lived experiences with product development, generating actionable frameworks and concepts for non-hormonal contraceptives.
Our Process
During co-creation sessions, WRAs ranked the top three attributes they consider when choosing a contraceptive method, such as bleeding changes, efficacy, return to fertility, privacy, and ease of use. Weighted averages of these rankings were calculated across segments and normalized on a 1–10 scale, creating a framework for comparison in each country. This made it possible to identify the most resonant attribute combinations, which formed the foundation for concept development.
Concepts were then tested with WRAs and mapped to the segments showing the strongest preference. Alongside this quantitative process, qualitative stories like Fama Niang’s added depth and context, showing how attributes shape health and life decisions
Additionally, a shared data platform and collaborative tools like Miroboard helped the team code, cluster, and refine insights across Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal, linking women’s individual voices to actionable frameworks for developers.
We developed two key frameworks to distill the detailed, nuanced data from over 1,000 participants, and the qualitative needs of WRAs into actionable insights:
Identifying which product attribute combinations resonate most with WRAs across vulnerabilities and geographies.
Product concepts supported by value propositions and decision-making journeys, showing how an ideal NHC might look if grounded in WRAs’ preferences.
Illustrative Concepts
Building on the attribute framework and decision-making journeys, we developed illustrative product concepts that show how non-hormonal contraceptives could better align with WRAs’ preferences. Each concept paired a value proposition with a mapped journey, grounding new ideas in both quantitative rankings and qualitative insights.
The goal was not to prescribe final products, but to visualize possibilities that reflect women’s priorities—such as reducing heavy bleeding, ensuring reliable efficacy, supporting quick return to fertility, or improving privacy and discretion. By testing these concepts with WRAs, we identified which combinations resonated most strongly and with which target segments.
Cross-Country Synthesis
While preferences varied across contexts, clear patterns emerged across Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal. Efficacy, side-effects, and cost consistently ranked as top attributes, but other factors such as privacy, discretion, and partner support carried different weight by country and segment.
By comparing weighted attribute rankings across geographies, we were able to identify both shared priorities and regional nuances. This synthesis helped ensure that concepts were not only relevant locally, but also scalable to broader markets and adaptable to diverse needs.
Outcomes
These insights challenge the industry’s conventional focus on a single “ideal” contraceptive. Instead, success lies in expanding choice—offering a diverse range of products that fit into different lives, relationships, and cultural contexts.
From this work, three opportunity areas for non-hormonal contraceptive innovation emerged:
- Fast-acting, short-term methods that offer on-demand protection without disrupting sexual satisfaction.
- Self-administered methods that enhance sexual experience while maintaining natural menstrual cycles.
- Discreet, long-term methods that provide sustained pregnancy prevention with minimal side effects.
Impact
Contraceptive development cannot assume what women need—it must be informed by them. Beyond One Size Fits All shows us that when women are engaged as co-creators, solutions are more desirable to them and aligned with their realities.
Women do not think in terms of “hormonal” versus “non-hormonal”, they make choices based on what works best for them at a given moment.
The research highlighted a critical truth: options matter. Preferences most relevant to women in Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal point toward new directions for effective, desirable product design. While further testing is needed to understand how attribute combinations work together, this work provides a strong foundation for future development.
“I think of my mother, who had many children and wanted to have access
to contraception but was never able to for lack of means. Today she has
passed away but I think these methods could have kept her alive longer.
Her last child was at the age of my eldest son, so I became his mother.”
Maye Diop, 23, Ziguinchor
My Role
Over the course of this multi-year project, I collaborated with in-country design and technology partners to facilitate research and synthesis for Beyond One Size Fits All.My work included:
-
Reviewing research guides, tools, facilitator guides, transcript tagging, and quantitative frameworks created by in-country design teams;
- Developing frameworks and facilitating synthesis with design partners;
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Calculating estimated market sizes by using Pathways Segmentation data to extrapolate findings.
- Translating insights into bar charts, product concepts, value propositions, and decision-making journeys for developers and funders.
© Haleemah Sadiah 2025