Rethinking menstruation tracking apps: Whose bodies do they serve?

Millions of people worldwide use menstruation tracking apps (MTAs) to monitor their cycles, track symptoms, and plan for or prevent pregnancy. Many find these tools empowering, a way to gain self-knowledge, feel prepared, and take control.

But MTAs are not neutral. Most MTAs are built around an implicit “ideal” user: a white, affluent, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied, young woman managing fertility with a regular, predictable cycle. This design lens risks reinforcing narrow, and sometimes harmful, ideas about what a “normal” body looks like, how it “should” behave, and what it’s for.

But of course, the menstrual experiences of real people are far more varied. So, in our research, we ask: what about the many users whose bodies, identities, or life stages sit outside this narrow “ideal”?

To explore this question, we are bringing together small groups of people who don’t “fit” the typical user profile for MTAs. Our research is exploring how people experience MTAs, and how these technologies shape relationships between identity, bodies, and self-understanding.

We’re focusing on people navigating major changes in their menstruation: teenagers getting to grips with their first cycles, people who’ve just had a baby and are wondering what their body is up to next (!), or those experiencing the hormonal changes of perimenopause (the transition to menopause).

For example, many people in perimenopause use these apps, even though they were not designed with perimenopause in mind. Similarly, after having a baby, people often find their app becomes less useful or even irrelevant. And yet, it’s often in these times of flux when support is most needed.

So far, we have facilitated groups with perimenopausal people and people who have had a baby. Over a series of sessions, these people have shared their experiences, frustrations, and hopes for what these technologies could be.

Together, we have developed a better understanding of the appeal and the challenges of these apps, and explored how we might reimagine this technology to meet the needs of people with diverse bodies, identities, and lives.

Here’s some of what we’ve learnt so far:

• The emotional toll of MTAs: These are not just functional tools, they stir up a lot feelings. Participants described stress, alienation, and emotional fatigue, often linked to the apps’ demands for constant data entry, unexplained “failures” (such as not conceiving), and the lack of meaningful follow-up or support.
• Reproductive focus: Most MTAs are obsessed with sex and pregnancy. For some users, this is useful. But it was stigmatising for those who weren’t, or couldn’t, try for a baby, or for those who had more pressing issues than optimising their sex life. After birth, participants also felt “dropped” by their app the moment the baby arrived. Perimenopausal users were treated as anomalies, their experiences “othered” or ignored.
• Mistrust: Many participants turned to MTAs because they wanted to have data to “prove” themselves. This, because they didn’t trust the health system, citing experiences of fatphobia, sexism, dismissal, and “pale, male, stale doctors”. But trust in the apps themselves was also shaky. People worried about who was using their data and for what purpose, particularly given the U.S. legal context around reproductive rights.
• Exclusions and misfitting: The design norms of these apps remain exclusionary, overlooking diverse needs and bodily experiences. Participants called for inclusive, ethical, and free MTAs that support a much wider range of menstrual lives.

Are you 16-17 years old and use a period tracking app?

Currently, we are recruiting for 16-17-year-olds to tell us what it’s like using MTAs at the beginning of the menstruating journey. If you’d like to share details about this research with anyone who falls within this age bracket, or learn more about the project and follow our progress, you can visit our website.

Once we’ve completed our group sessions with 16-17-year olds, we will be sharing our findings in various ways. One creative outcome of our project will be a digital fiction, an interactive story/game designed to look and feel like a period tracking app. But instead of predicting ovulation or nudging users to log their mood, it will offer a rich set of stories drawn from real experiences, broadening the narratives of what menstruation can look like.

We hope it will prompt both reflection and recognition, and in the long run, open the door to working with developers to design a new kind of period tracker, one that is affirmative, inclusive, and genuinely empowering.

As we mark Women’s Health Week, it’s worth remembering that the technologies we use to track our bodies are never just tools… they’re part of the stories we tell about ourselves. And if those stories don’t yet reflect the full range of our lives, it’s time to rewrite them.

Learn more about Critical Health Psychology at Massey University