Abstract
Menstrual pain affects a significant proportion of individuals worldwide, yet it has long been stigmatized and remains under explored in both design research and industry. Existing technologies primarily focus on symptom tracking or pain relief, overlooking the complex, temporal, and embodied nature of menstrual pain while perpetuating narrow narratives. To challenge these limitations, we conducted a participatory workshop to explore speculative futures of menstrual pain care. Using approaches like body maps, scenario-building, and design fiction, participants shared their lived experiences, critiqued existing technologies, and envisioned future scenarios rooted in empathy, inclusivity, and ethics. In this pictorial, we presented the workshop process, the design probes for participatory futuring, and the future scenarios proposed by participants. Through reflection and analysis of the workshop activities and outcomes, our findings reveal how socio cultural contexts shape the experience of menstrual pain and the desire for more customizable, inclusive, and ethical futures of menstrual pain technologies.
Keywords
Menstrual pain; Design futuring; Participatory workshop; Feminist HCI
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.983
Citation
Tang, M., Kagawa, M.,and Kakehi, Y.(2025) Design Futuring for Menstrual Pain Technologies through a Participatory Workshop, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.983
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 2 - Design Futuring
Design Futuring for Menstrual Pain Technologies through a Participatory Workshop
Menstrual pain affects a significant proportion of individuals worldwide, yet it has long been stigmatized and remains under explored in both design research and industry. Existing technologies primarily focus on symptom tracking or pain relief, overlooking the complex, temporal, and embodied nature of menstrual pain while perpetuating narrow narratives. To challenge these limitations, we conducted a participatory workshop to explore speculative futures of menstrual pain care. Using approaches like body maps, scenario-building, and design fiction, participants shared their lived experiences, critiqued existing technologies, and envisioned future scenarios rooted in empathy, inclusivity, and ethics. In this pictorial, we presented the workshop process, the design probes for participatory futuring, and the future scenarios proposed by participants. Through reflection and analysis of the workshop activities and outcomes, our findings reveal how socio cultural contexts shape the experience of menstrual pain and the desire for more customizable, inclusive, and ethical futures of menstrual pain technologies.