You might have been hearing the newest buzzword “femtech” quite frequently recently. And the reason as to why this industry has been booming across the last few years is simple yet complex. Going beyond the buzz this concept has been generating in different fields and industries, we find the wide range of opportunities that have been flourish around it. One thing is certain, the femtech industry is currently booming with innovations tackling everything from menstrual health to menopause and pelvic floor strengthening.
Which is why we decided to take you on a short journey with this article to present this industry and all the opportunities that lay ahead for you and your project. In this article, we will explore how we at Punctuate Design can work together with your team to create impactful, innovative, and purposeful femtech products or services.
For decades, if not centuries, women’s health was an underserved and often overlooked segment in the healthcare and technology sectors across all countries around the world. Historically, medical research focused disproportionately on male physiology to say the least, therefore leading to a significant gap in understanding women’s unique health needs and requirements. For example, products like early contraceptive devices and menstrual care items emerged only in the mid-20th century. And yet, innovation in women’s health remained incredibly slow due to a multitude of factors such as cultural stigma, limited funding, and a lack of female representation in technology and product development to name only a few.
In fact, it wasn’t until the early 2010s that the term Femtech (short for female technology) was even coined by entrepreneur Ida Tin, who happened to be the founder of the period-tracking app Clue which we will present later in this article. One thing is for certain, this marked a turning point, as startups finally began focusing specifically on leveraging technology to address women’s unique and evolving health needs.
Since the early 2010s, the femtech industry has begun to explode slowly but surely. Investors, entrepreneurs, and innovators have found themselves fueled by the different advancements in digital technology, increasing awareness of gender-specific health needs, and an overall global push for gender equality. According to recent reports, the femtech market was valued at approximately $51 billion in 2022 and is projected to grow significantly, with some estimates placing it at over $103 billion by 2030.
Although there is a wide range of key drivers that have been fueling all the growth in the femtech industry, the three main ones relate to funding, technological advancement, and a shift in culture. In fact, venture capitalists are increasingly recognizing the profitability of investing in women’s health, with femtech startups raising billions in recent years. Meanwhile, wearable devices, AI-driven health apps, and different types of small or large scale smart diagnostic tools are transforming how women monitor and manage their health across their hormonal cycle. And lastly, conversations about once taboo topics such as menstruation, fertility, and menopause are becoming more mainstream, especially as the demand for femtech solutions has grown.
Today, the industry is seen to encompass a broad range of products and services, including but not limited to menstrual health, fertility tracking, sexual wellness, maternal care, and perimenopause or menopause support.
We at Punctuate Design are honored and proud to be spearheading innovation in the femtech industry as we help our clients bring their unique and purposeful ideas to life.
In order to be able to design for women’s health, understanding the real challenges, emotions, and contexts of your target users is a non-negotiable. At our design studio, we see market and user research not just as a checklist: it is a chance to fully immerse ourselves in the different rich lived experiences of all of our users.
We work hand in hand with our clients to identify their target audience and to make sure their wants, needs, frustrations, and desires are being heard, to then be able to be satisfied with our solutions.
Our team of experts is well aware of how societal stigma around women’s health creates gaps in product accessibility and usability. We therefore use alternative techniques and strategies to dig deeper into unspoken needs, such as anonymous surveys, or ethnographic research and observations on the field (without intervention).
For example, through an intensive deep dive into the world of pregnancy tests, we uncovered that, for the past 30 years, the technology behind at-home pregnancy tests has not changed. This fueled the need to tackle this issue head-on, leading us to create YU, a single-use home pregnancy test offering a reduced environmental impact.
In our experience, the best way to uncover pain points, aspirations, and overlooked needs is by conducting interviews, focus groups, or surveys to analyze the data at its source. We also pride ourselves on creating safe, inclusive environments with the help of our clients for open conversations about often-taboo topics like menstruation, menopause, or sexual wellness. Lastly, we utilize different tools such as creating personas and journey mappings to empathize with users’ daily experiences and challenges.
For example, within the home pregnancy test project, and in order to tap into the market’s needs in a more personal and empathetic way, we organized a few focus groups. These proved to bring together menstruating individuals who have experienced or are experiencing having to use home pregnancy tests at various stages of their lives.
The stories and insights that those groups of users kindly shared with our team proved to be equal parts fascinating and informative, further fueling our passion for this project.
Women’s health is not a one-size-fits-all market: we at Punctuate Design operate based on the assumption that we are all different and unique. We're therefore looking into all the factors that can influence our user’s needs and frustrations, as well as their expectations, such as age, cultural heritage, socioeconomic background, physical or cognitive ability, etc. Then, we are able to harness the power of this diversity within our creative process, highlighting how our research ensures inclusivity. We can then explore different ways to celebrate this richness, from adaptive designs to including culturally relevant features and aspects, and so on.
We at Punctuate Design believe the best femtech products and services are born out of close collaboration between our designers and engineers, the researchers and experts, our client and their team, and the end users.
With the help of our client’s team and after consulting with experts in the specific field, we are able to map out the user landscape with all the intricacies that will help us build our value proposition. The next step is then translating all those valuable insights into different tangible and creative solutions through ideation, in parallel with endless rounds of rapid prototyping and testing.
At Punctuate Design, we believe that the key to exceptional femtech products or services lie in an empathy-driven design process.
We therefore pride ourselves on following an intensive iterative prototyping process, where we use our different tests and observations as a learning tool. We put iterative prototyping is at the heart of creating impactful femtech products for our clients. Furthermore, we can test the various assumptions we have made, we can refine and optimize our preliminary ideas, and we can learn from real-world user interactions and feedback. All of this is possible by having the expertise and the connections to be able to develop quick prototypes—whether they are physical models or digital mockups.
And, as you might have already guessed, prototyping begins — and ends — with empathy. Before putting pen to paper or designing a model, we immerse ourselves in the user’s perspective, asking a wide range of critical questions that will shape our initial concepts.
What are the daily challenges my users come across? What features can my product or service offer that will enhance their lives? Which major pain points must we address and create an efficient solution for?
Once a preliminary concept has been validated, and a quick first prototype has been built, and this is where the true iterative process begins!
Early-stage prototypes can be often rough but functional, or on the contrary, esthetically accurate but non-functional. What they truly do is enable us to evaluate various critical aspects around themes such as usability, ergonomics, and aesthetics.
For example, in designing a wearable device for the relief of menstrual pains for Juno Technologies, our initial prototypes testes fit and comfort for different body types. We then refined the device’s shape, materials, or weight distribution based on user feedback before introducing advanced features like the integration of the electronic components, the product’s connectivity or ultimately the app integration.
Another example is the rigorous testings within the YU project which helped us validate aspects such as ergonomics, proportions, and overall aesthetics. These steps allowed us to make sure that our final concept exceeds expectations, guaranteeing optimal user-friendliness and satisfaction.
This approach allows us to focus on our end-users’ true needs from the outset. We are then able to save time and resources by identifying and addressing the potential design or principal flaws early on in the process. This helps us ensure that the final product aligns perfectly with both our clients and their customers’ expectations.
Over time, the prototypes become more sophisticated, moving from basic sketches to polished models that closely resemble the final product. This gradual refinement ensures we’ve thoroughly validated our design before committing to large-scale manufacturing.
As we mentioned above, prototyping is only as effective as the feedback it generates, which is why we actively involve users in every stage of the design process. We plan and organize different types of usability testing sessions which then allow our users to interact with our prototypes in real-world scenarios, providing invaluable insights into their experiences or preferences, and especially and more importantly for us, their frustrations.
Creating feedback loops allows us to co-create improvements with our users. Adjustments—such as reconfiguring navigation menus or enhancing visual clarity—are directly vocalized to us by their reactions and their inputs. One can only imagine how this iterative feedback process fosters trust between all the stakeholders involved. This is a key factor in the world of femtech as most products and services in this industry are imagined and made accessible based on trust.
More importantly, involving the user in the early development phases has proven to empower them as active participants in the design process, reinforcing their connection to the final product. When users feel heard and see their feedback implemented, they’re evidently more likely to become loyal advocates for the brand.
Although innovation is essential in the femtech industry, designing a cutting-edge product that feels impractical or intimidating to users can run the risk of alienating your audience and, by consequence, limit or hinder your market success.
This is why, for us, innovation must be grounded in the realities of our users’ lives.
Femtech products and services are often deeply persona. And, when they successfully and seamlessly integrate into our users’ lives, they foster loyalty and long-term user satisfaction which lingers in time. Striking the balance between functionality and creativity requires a deep understanding of user contexts and iterative testing to refine every detail, from material choice, to product proportions, to its interface design, to its packaging.
Therefore, by prioritizing empathy, we can then ensure that innovation align with real-world needs, thus creating products or services that are not only functional, but that are emotionally resonant and relevant.
Let’s take femtech company Elvie as an example to further demonstrate our point: in recent years, Elvie is known to have revolutionized the breast pump market by listening closely to busy mothers. Traditional pumps were found to be noisy, bulky, and inconvenient, adding stress to already incredibility hectic lives of new mothers or parents. Through their empathetic research and direct user involvement, the design team at Elvie identified the dying need for a more discreet wearable solution. Prototypes were rigorously tested and refined with real moms, ensuring comfort, ease of use, and quiet operation through the lifecycle of the product. The result is a sleek, silent pump that fit seamlessly into daily routines, earning widespread praise and empowering working mothers everywhere.
Similarly, another leading femtech company revolutionizing menstrual health in Clue. They are notorious to have transformed the way women track their cycles by breaking stereotypes and prioritizing inclusivity. Through conducting global surveys and interviews, they have uncovered a universal desire for a science-based, intuitive app free from the usual pink clichés. And then, by co-creating with their end users, they crafted a customizable, empowering tool that not only tracks cycles but also educates users about their bodies. Today, Clue is known as a global favorite. Their solution offering is known to have reduced stigma and improved overall awareness about women’s health.
As one can imagine — and hope — the future of femtech looks promising, with continued growth driven by technological advancements and increasing societal acceptance of women’s health topics. In fact, dozens of new emerging trends and projections have been popping in recent years to consolidate this. Advances in AI and big data are projected to enable hyper-personalized products which can be tailored to individual needs, such as customized hormonal therapies or fertility plans, for example. While topics like menopause, mental health, and pelvic health are increasingly gaining more attention — thus presenting significant opportunities for innovation. Then, femtech companies are being given the chance to address disparities in healthcare access for women worldwide expansion as awareness grows in emerging markets. And lastly, recent studies have shown that there is a rising demand for eco-friendly and culturally inclusive products that resonate with diverse audiences.
However, like in anything, multiple challenges remain, including the difficulty in navigating regulatory hurdles, the complexity of addressing cultural taboos in certain regions, and the importance of ensuring data privacy for all users on all platforms.
Despite all these hurdles, one thing is for certain: the femtech industry has evolved from a neglected niche to a thriving sector with immense potential to revolutionize women’s healthcare.
It is our belief that, by combining empathy-driven research with cutting-edge technology, the industry is not only addressing long-overdue health challenges, but also empowering minorities such as women to take charge of their overall well-being.
For innovators, this is the perfect time to enter the market! Our design studio is here to help turn your femtech vision into reality!
Are you ready to take your femtech idea to the next level? Let’s collaborate to create innovative, user-centered solutions that make a meaningful impact!
Contact us here or at hello@punctuatedesign.com
