Team /
Katie Borgia
Lan Allison
Rohini Mohandoss
Role /
UX Researcher and Designer
Timeline /
8 weeks
When the bed becomes too uncomfortable, our participant sleeps on her couch
ADAPTIVE PREGNANCY PILLOW
Designing for safe and supportive sleep during pregnancy
INTRODUCTION
A person’s body undergoes many changes physically, mentally, and emotionally during pregnancy and postpartum. This can present new challenges to a pregnant person, requiring them to learn to manage their continually developing condition and navigate their daily lives differently. To understand this complex and unique experience, my team and I used participatory design methods to identify a problem space and design an adjustable body pillow with a pregnant participant. This co-designed pillow supports a person’s changing body and needs and provides restful and comfortable sleep.
BACKGROUND
Our participant is a mother of a three year old and is currently in her second trimester of pregnancy. She is considered to be of advanced maternal age and has experienced pregnancy complications in the past. During a co-design session (more details in the methods section), we worked with her to refine our project scope to providing safe and supportive sleep during pregnancy. Having trouble sleeping is a common experience during pregnancy as people develop physical discomfort, insomnia, or other issues. However, lack of sleep can lead to higher risks of complications such as preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, and longer labors. Pregnant people also have to be aware of how they are sleeping where sleeping on one’s side is usually recommended by doctors as it allows for better circulation within the body and to the fetus.
RESEARCH + SYNTHESIS
We utilized participatory design methods by including our participant in all phases of the design process. In our first co-design session, we focused on identifying barriers our participant experienced during her pregnancies. We employed an exploratory process by creating an interactive board on Mural populated with open-ended topic starters. Through a semi-guided conversation, our participant shared specific examples of interacting with people or her surroundings differently when she became pregnant. A major challenge that our participant identified was sleeping poorly throughout her first pregnancy and, again, during her current pregnancy, which impacts her ability to function during the day and care for her active toddler. Due to the great health implications of receiving good sleep during pregnancy, in addition to the pregnancy risks our participant monitors, we decided that designing a better sleep aid was an important challenge to tackle.
We asked our participant to do a rapid brainstorm of qualities that her current sleep solutions fail to meet her needs and synthesized them into the following design principles:
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Safe for the user and the fetus
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Relieves body pain
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Customizable to different body sizes, preferences, and needs
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Easy to move around with or mobile
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Compact size
PROTOTYPING
My team and I went through an ideation and sketching phase with these design principles in mind and two distinct concepts emerged.
Our second concept was a customizable, adjustable pillow. There are many pregnancy pillows on the market and our participant has had unsatisfactory experiences with the ones she has tried. What separates our design from others is the amount of customization it allows to fit the body shape, needs, and preferences of the user. The pillow has an adjustable length and can expand and collapse with invisible zippers. The pockets holding the stuffing are accessible so that stuffing can be added or removed depending on preference for firmness. There is also an internal metal frame inside the pillow that gives it structure but is flexible enough to be bent into various shapes to support different sleeping positions and body parts.
TESTING
We held another co-design session with our participant to review the two prototypes and incorporate her design suggestions. We prepared the following 3 tasks to evaluate the prototypes:
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Set up the product for sleep
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Get in and out of bed
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Adjust sleeping positions
Since the session was held remotely and we did not have physical prototypes to test with, we created storyboards that depicted each task. We used the storyboards as entry points for our participant to imagine how she would interact with the prototypes and to solicit honest feedback and questions. We also used the activity “I Like, I Want, What If” to guide her into diving deeper with constructive criticism.
Overall, our participant preferred the adjustable pillow design over the wearable. She was intrigued by the novelty of the wearable (and was eager to try it if it were a real product) but was skeptical about its practicality, particularly its ease of removal during her frequent trips to the bathroom. She also had safety concerns about accidentally inducing labor by applying hot/cold compress or using a massaging device around her belly. We considered this a major issue that would be difficult to overcome without guidance and endorsement from medical professionals. The pillow design was more intuitive and she could imagine different ways she would adjust the pillow based on the needs of her body during pregnancy and postpartum.
While our participant appreciated the ability to control the firmness of the pillow, she wanted to be able to add or remove the stuffing from different sections because her legs required more cushioning than her belly. She also wanted the pillow to be easy to clean in case her water broke while she was using it. Sustainability and hygiene are important to her as many people pass along their pregnancy items after they are done with them and she plans to do the same.
ITERATE + FINAL TESTING
For the next round of prototyping, my team and I made modifications to the pillow design by adding a waterproof lining underneath the external fabric shell. We changed the internal structure to comprise of a mesh bag with a compartment structure that holds the stuffing so that it is all held together when the outer layers are removed. The compartments also allow for non-uniform fill throughout the pillow.
In our last co-design session, we presented our iterated design for another round of feedback and reflections. Our participant appreciated the additional features we incorporated but was concerned that the customizability may create a barrier of entry, especially for people experiencing their first pregnancy. If the pillow were to go to market, she suggested that it come pre-shaped and stuffed as a “starter” mode.
We probed further and asked if an introductory booklet or instructional videos that show different possibilities and uses would be helpful. She thought that would make the initial experience of navigating the customizable features less overwhelming. She also felt it would be helpful if the tutorials showed how the pillow could be used for different scenarios beyond pregnancy such as recovering from a c-section or postpartum. Overall, our participant felt heard throughout the design process and was surprised we were able to build off of something so ubiquitous as a pregnancy pillow.
REFLECTIONS
We were limited by conducting the co-design sessions remotely and not having a physical prototype for our participant to use. If we were to build a physical prototype, we would need to consider and evaluate other aspects of the design for accessibility. For example, it would be important to test how sturdy the flexible internal frame needs to be to hold its shape while also being easy to bend without creating usability issues. We were also limited to one participant for our co-design sessions. Since pregnancy is such a unique experience to the individual, it would be important to include more participants within our participatory design methods to ensure diverse perspectives and account for accessibility and inclusivity.
The first concept we wanted to present to our participant was a wearable biker short with built-in hip and belly support. The shorts have a zipper closure for easy wearing and removal and the supportive belly band is adjustable and secured with Velcro. There is a concealed pocket on the lower back where the user can store a cold or warm compress or a massage device to relieve muscle pain or soreness. The wearable also contains external pockets on the sides of the belly band and in the inner thighs where the user can insert foam blocks to prop the stomach and keep their hips aligned when they are sleeping on their side. The wearable also addresses our participant’s concerns of a bulky design that hinders her ability to easily switch sleeping positions or to get in and out of bed as she frequently uses the bathroom in the middle of the night.
