This study explores the possibility of designing an empowering community on a hormone-tracking application. I hereby draw inspiration from the ethos of the radical consciousness-raising groups of the 1970s to move away from the traditional individualistic approach to hormonal health. The study adopts a research-through-design approach that integrates a combination of sensitizing user engagement, somaesthetics and speculative design. By conducting interviews centred on individuals’ lived experiences surrounding hormonal health and a design workshop that emphasises collaboration and inclusion in the design process, I discuss the potential for creating a digital community that promotes a holistic and collectivist perspective for hormone-tracking applications. The aim is not to make users reliant on the community to give them knowledge. Rather, the community should enable users to collectively create a consciousness around their hormonal health and use this to empower them to better understand their hormones. The findings highlight that the design should be guided by the principles of connecting only a few people that share similar experiences and have different levels of knowledge to establish genuine human connections and collectively construct hormonal consciousness. Lastly, our study concludes that akin to the women’s health movement, the act of bringing together a group of people to discuss their health and bodies is in itself an empowering and inspiring act that fosters a sense of community. / Den här studien undersöker möjligheten att utforma en stärkande gemenskap för en hormonspårningsapplikation. Jag hämtar härmed inspiration från de radikala medvetandehöjande gruppernas etos på 1970-talet för att gå bort från det traditionella individualistiska förhållningssättet till hormonell hälsa. Studien anammar en forskning-genom-design-metod som integrerar en kombination av sensibiliserande användarengagemang, somestetik och spekulativ design. Genom att genomföra intervjuer centrerade på individers upplevelser kring hormonell hälsa och en designworkshop som betonar samarbete och inkludering i designprocessen, diskuterar jag möjligheten för att skapa en digital gemenskap som främjar ett holistiskt och kollektivistiskt perspektiv för hormonspårningstillämpningar. Syftet här är inte att göra användarna beroende av samhället för att ge dem kunskap, utan att ge dem möjlighet att starta en konversation om hormonell hälsa och koppla ihop dem för att få stöd i sina upplevelser. Resultaten visar att designen bör vägledas av principerna om att koppla samman endast ett fåtal personer som delar liknande erfarenheter och har olika kunskapsnivåer för att etablera äkta mänskliga kopplingar och kollektivt skapa kunnighet och kompetens inom hormonell hälsa. Slutligen drar studien slutsatsen att i likhet med kvinnohälsorörelsen är handlingen att sammanföra en grupp människor för att diskutera deras hälsa och kroppar i sig en förstärkande och inspirerande handling som främjar en känsla av gemenskap.

Curious Cycles responds to the tensions that arise when designing technologies for menstruation and menstrual cycles, touching upon notions of curiosity, noticing, sharing, taking or making space, and our relationships with our bodies and their fluids. The project follows a Research through Design approach, guided by Soma Design and feminist research methods. Curious Cycles are a set of cultural probes; objects and interactions designed to gather experiences and insights from ve people who menstruate, throughout the duration of a cycle (approximately one month). The objects are meant to "cultivate curiosity", provoking reections on the ways we currently relate to our bodies and bodily uids and speculating on how we might relate to them in the future. This work seeks to approach the design method of cultural probes from a feminist perspective and contributes through the concept of "cultivating curiosity", a way to design menstrual cycle technologies by attending closely to the changing social and material experiences of the body, which in turn can challenge the cultural taboos surrounding menstruation. / Curious Cycles svarar mot spänningarna som uppkommer när teknologier designas för menstruation och menstruationscykeln, genom idéer kring nykenhet, att märka, att dela med sig, att ta eller göra plats, och våra relationer med våra kroppar och deras vätskor. Projektet följer en Research through Design metodik, guidad av Soma Design och feministiska forskningsmetoder. Curious Cycles är en uppsättning cultural probes; föremål och interaktioner designade för att samla erfarenheter och insikter från fem menstruerande personer genom deras hela menstruationscykel (vilka pågår cirka en månad). Föremålen är menade att kultivera nykenhet för att framkalla reektioner kring de sätt vi för närvarande relaterar till våra kroppar och kroppsliga vätskor på, och även för att spekulera kring hur vi kan relatera till de i framtiden. Detta arbete närmar sig cultural probes från feministiska perspektiv och bidrar med konceptet "cultivating curiosity", ett sätt att designa teknologier för menstruationscykeln genom att ingående uppmärksamma förändringar av sociala och materiella erfarenheter av kroppen, vilket i sin tur kan utmana kulturella tabun kring menstruation.

Structural gendered inequality permeates intelligent systems, shaping everyday lives and reinforcing gender oppression. This study investigates how uncertainty, as an inherent characteristic of Machine Learning (ML) models, can be translated as a design material to highlight gender bias in Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. It follows an HCI feminist methodology with a threefold horizon: the re-conceptualisation of the design space that considers human and non-human perspectives (Giaccardi & Redström, 2020); the exploration of ML uncertainty as design materiality (Benjamin et al., 2020) to underscore imbued gender inequality in intelligent systems; and the disputed relations of ML uncertainty as materiality with unpredictability in Explainable AI systems, more specifically Graspable AI (Ghajargar et al., 2021, 2022). As a critical exploratory process, the knowledge contribution is the development of a set of guidelines for the design of better and more equal ML systems.

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The popularity of mobile period tracker apps, designed to help women track their periods and fertility, has skyrocketed over the past decade. The target audience is people who menstruate, most often women. There are numerous articles on personalisation in mobile apps, but personalisation in mobile period tracker apps has been little studied. Therefore, in this thesis, I analyse the ways of collecting information about users and personalising the user's account in the period tracker apps, as well as whether this personalisation meets the needs of female users. My research question is: How could the personalisation of mobile period tracker apps be improved through design to meet real users' needs? The study builds on the user experience (UX) design process and consists of the following phases: UX research, design, and user testing. In addition, it includes an ideation part. I used post-structural feminist theory from the perspective of Judith Butler's work as a framework. I conducted seven semi-structured interviews with female users who actively use period tracker apps. I studied three chosen period tracker apps using the walkthrough method and conducted a co-design workshop using the themes identified through the thematic analysis of the interviews. The research output is a design solution tested on five participants of the study and then iterated. Through my work, I contribute to studies of reproductive technologies and the field of feminist human-computer interaction (HCI) through suggestions on personalisation.

How are technologies are designed and used tactically by activists? As the HCI community starts to contend with social inequalities, there has been debate about how HCI researchers should address approach this type of research. However, there is little research examining practitioners such as social justice activists who confront social problems, and are using technology, such as mobile phones, blogging, and social media to do so. In this dissertation, I build on this knowledge within the context of a social movement organization working to stop street harassment (harassment towards women and minorities in public) called Hollaback (ihollaback.org). I position myself as an action researcher doing research and building technologies such as mobile apps and a blogging platform to collect stories of harassment and to support activists. The organization has collected over 3000 stories and represents 50 different locales in 17 countries. Through a series of studies, I examined how technology impacts the organization, activists, and those who contribute stories of harassment. I found evidence that the storytelling platform helps participants fundamentally shift their cognitive and emotional orientation towards their experience and informs what activists do on the ground. My results suggest that doing activism using technology can help remove some barriers to participation but can also lower expectations for the amount of work required. I also looked at how different social media tactics can increase the number of followers and how traditional media plays a role in these tactics. My work contributes theoretically to the HCI community by building on social movement theory, feminist HCI, and action research methodology. My investigation also sheds light empirically on how technology plays a role in a social movement organization, and how it impacts those who participate.

This Research-through-Design conducted as thesis project within Malmö University Interaction Design Master’s programme is an attempt to bridge the gap between the quantified self and the subjective & collective experiences of the self-tracking for less normative ways of meaning-making of data. In order to accomplish this, it offers a feminist critique of self-tracking and an exploration of new features for self-tracking apps using provotypes to inform the HCI community.

With the digitization of healthcare, there has been an increase in self-tracking technologies for health. One group of self-tracking technologies is FMTs, fertility- and menstruation technologies. By gathering information on users’ menstruation and fertility, these technologies have access to intimate and sensitive data that requires secure protection. Previous research has criticized FMTs for lacking in data security and several risks with this data being shared have been identified. Risks of lacking data security include discrimination against the user in the workplace, and being targeted by cyber-criminals. This thesis explores how users perceive trust and data privacy in fertility- and menstruation technologies by conducting a user study. Participants (n=18) were interviewed in pairs about their experiences of FMTs, data privacy, and trust. Based on the interview findings, seven design guidelines were created to enhance user trust and ensure data privacy. Additionally, an Android application was developed as a high-fidelity prototype to visualize and discuss the guidelines. The research contributes to the field by identifying design aspects that can be used by creators of FMTs to improve their privacy practices and generate trust among their users. / Med digitalisering har det skett en ökning av självspårande teknologier inom hälsa. En typ av självspårande teknologier är FMT:er, fertilitet- och menstruationsteknologier. Genom att samla information om användares menstruation och fertilitet har de här teknologierna tillgång till intim och känslig data som kräver ordentligt skydd. Risker med bristande datasäkerhet inkluderar att användaren diskrimineras på sin arbetsplats, blir offer för cyberbrottslingar, och blir kontrollerad av en familjemedlem eller partner. Tidigare forskning har kritiserat FMT:er för bristande datasäkerhet och har identifierat flera risker med detta. Den här uppsatsen utforskar hur användare uppfattar tillit och datasäkerhet till fertilitet- och menstruationsteknologier genom en användarstudie. Deltagare (n=18) intervjuades parvis om deras erfarenhet av FMT:er, datasäkerhet och tillit. Utifrån intervjuresultaten har sju riktlinjer för design av FMT:er för ökad tillit och datasäkerhet tagits fram. Dessutom utvecklades en Android applikation som prototyp för att visualisera riktlinjerna. Denna uppsats bidrar till forskningsområdet genom att identifiera designaspekter som kan användas av FMT utvecklare för att förbättra deras sekretesspraxis och påverka deras användares tillit till deras produkt.

Women have always been concerned about their safety when walking alone and have taken precautions to protect themselves from harm. With the current advances in technology, women’s safety techniques and devices have drastically changed within the past years, for instance, by introducing the use of safety buttons. This study aims to explore the interaction women living in Stockholm, Sweden would have when carrying such a smart device. Through research and design methodologies and applying Feminist HCI values, two workshops were held to better understand this interaction between women carrying a Flic Safety Button and their street safety. The main conclusion of the study is that when designing such interactions, one should consider various of the different influencing mechanisms the women have as well as personal sentiments regarding their personal safety to encourage usability of the button to any situation. The most essential influences are the availability of friends and family, social lifestyles, and existing safety behaviors. To inspire future developments and exemplify this ecology of safety mechanisms, this thesis introduces three archetypes of interactions, materialized as personas in scenarios depicting different perceptions on how women interact when their safety is being compromised. / Kvinnor har alltid varit oroade över sin säkerhet när de går ensamma och har vidtagit försiktighetsåtgärder för att skydda sig mot skador. Med de senaste årens tekniska framsteg har säkerhetsteknik och anordningar för kvinnor förändrats drastiskt, till exempel genom att man infört användning av säkerhetsknappar. Den här studien syftar till att undersöka vilken interaktion kvinnor som bor i Stockholm, Sverige, skulle ha när de bär en sådan smart enhet. Med hjälp av forsknings- och designmetoder och genom att tillämpa feministiska HCI-värden hölls två workshops för att bättre förstå interaktionen mellan kvinnor som bär en Flic-säkerhetsknapp och deras säkerhet på gatan. Den viktigaste slutsatsen av studien är att när man utformar sådana interaktioner bör man ta hänsyn till olika påverkansmekanismer som kvinnorna har samt personliga känslor om deras personliga säkerhet för att uppmuntra användbarheten av knappen i alla situationer. De viktigaste påverkansfaktorerna är tillgången till vänner och familj, sociala livsstil och befintliga säkerhetsbeteenden. För att inspirera framtida utveckling och exemplifiera denna ekologi av säkerhetsmekanismer introduceras i denna avhandling tre arketyper av interaktioner, som materialiseras som personas i scenarier som visar olika uppfattningar om hur kvinnor interagerar när deras säkerhet äventyras.

Digital platforms such as social media are big part of people's everyday life and social network. Recent studies shows that the ability to act anonymously on social media has increased harassment behaviors online. For marginalized groups, digital platforms are important for the act of freedom of speech and harassments online can limit these groups in the digital environment. Within the framework of this study we found, that there is a lack of studies that specifically research sexual harassments online and what different factors that may have an impact on the problem. Therefore, the aim for this study was to research what values, attitudes and emotions users of social media services experiences online. We wanted to research, from a user perspective, what existing counter-strategies options are provided on social media against sexual harassments online, and if there are other technical design solutions for social media interfaces. Within the framework of this essay we have conducted a focus group interview and a participatory design workshop. The empirical data that was collected has been analysed with different theories such as power, resistance, empowerment in design, master suppression techniques in social media, feminist HCI and social norms and participatory design. The study also use previous research on harassment on social media to further understand the empirical data for the analysis. In this study there are findings from the focus group that has been placed in three different themes. 1) The importance of social relationships for counter-strategies against sexual harassment online. 2) Social norms and normalization of sexual harassment online. 3) The importance of technical aspects for dealing with sexual harassment online. Our study shows that the counter-strategies options on social media services today are not sufficient enough for these different aspects. The participatory design workshop in this study resulted in eight possible technical design solutions. These solutions can be implications for design on social media interfaces and can work as counter-strategy tools against sexual harassments online. This study only research one focus group, therefore the study can be used as a basis for further research. By including users with participatory design methods, values made from users of social media in relation to sexual harassments online can unfold and hopefully decrease the problem.