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Hi everybody. Hi, Welcome, And thank you for taking the time to join us today for this Morgenbooster about menopause. And the theme is how to design with empathy for people in transition. And we are not the only ones talking about this subject at the time. It's quite a hot topic in the media

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and also a lot of research is being done looking into how big an impact menopause actually has on our life and in our society in general. But the reason why we are here today is because we are currently designing an app for people in menopause together with Kræftens Bekæmpelse. I'm Kristine, I work here at 1508 and I've been in charge of involving users and experts

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and conceptualizing and designing the UX for the app. I'm Marina also from 1508, and I was responsible for the design direction, the UI, also conceptualization and illustration. And I'm Line from Kræftens Bekæmpelse, I'm the project manager and I started in November, joined the project there. And we hope that after today you'll leave with a better understanding of what menopause is, if you don't already know.

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And also some perspectives on how the system has an influence on menopause. Then get some input on how to design for a sensitive topic that you can bring home. And lastly, the answer for why Kræftens Bekæmpelse is actually doing this. So before we start, I would like you to raise your hand if you know what's going on in this video. Yeah, so the woman in the video is having a hot flash.

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And a hot flash is one of the most well-known symptoms related to menopause. But even though a hot flash can be bad enough in itself, it's definitely not the only thing that goes on in menopause. So let's dive into that, and I wanna disclaim that we are not doctors, but I'll try my best to give you a picture of what menopause is all about. The facts we know about it, there is a lot of things we don't know,

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but I'll try to just tell you what it's all about because it's quite important to understand that before you understand why we are actually desiging an app for this. So as humans, we are all designed by nature. So all the details in our body is supposed to serve some kind of purpose. At least that's how it used to be. But we actually don't really know for sure why humans go into menopause. But some researchers suggest that

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menopause doesn't really play a role, but we are just not supposed to live as long as we do today. And other scientists suggest that it's kind some kind of protective mechanism because giving birth at an older age is quite risky for both the mother and the child. As far as we know, most animals remain fertile until death. But we do also know that there are few other species, including the orca who also goes into menopause.

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And biologists have found that in orca families, the grandmother has a quite important role since when she goes into menopause, she shifts her focus into teaching the younger whales how to raise her babies, both to ensure the survival of her genes, but also to strengthen her social network. So in orca families you can see that if there is no grandmother present, the survival rate of the babies is significantly lower.

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So some scientists also suggest that that's also why we go into menopause, so that we are supposed to make use of all our wisdom and life experience for the benefit of younger generations. And that's what's referred to as the grandmother effect. And we kind of like that theory. So it's all about hormones. So when you go into menopause especially, it's about your sex hormones, about estrogen and progesterone. Those levels start to decrease,

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but it's mostly the estrogen that is linked to the menopausal symptoms and estrogen influences our entire body. So besides from regulating our menstruation, it also supports our bone health, for instance, and also plays a big role in our mood. And estrogen is mainly produced in the ovaries, which means that everyone with at least one ovary will go into menopause

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at some point of time, no matter the gender identity. So that's like 50% of the planet's population and this is what it looks like. So in puberty, our estrogen levels rise and we get our first period, and then during the reproductive years it's at its highest, but it fluctuates throughout this period. And then when we reach menopause, our estrogen level starts

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to decrease again, and we have the last period. And all of these different life phases come with their own unique changes to both body and mind. And if you wonder what about the men, then the blue color here shows the testosterone in people born male compared to the estrogen in people born female. And as you can tell, the testosterone levels don't suddenly drop and they don't ever drop to zero.

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So biologically speaking, there is no menopause for men. However, some people born male also experience similar symptoms to menopause, and that's what is referred to by some scientists as the andropause. But it's widely debated whether that is a thing, back to menopause. So within menopause we have three different phases, but the term menopause itself clinically refers to the day where your last period was one year ago.

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Everything before that is perimenopause. And everything after that is post menopause. And on the day of menopause, you won't have your cycle anymore, meaning that you won't have any rollercoaster affecting your mind and body throughout the month. You won't have any more bleeding. So no more tampons to buy. And also you won't be able to get pregnant and you won't have to worry about unwanted pregnancies as well.

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In Denmark, the average age for menopause is 52, so that is the day, your last period was a year ago. But it varies a lot from person to person when it happens. So typically between the age of 40 and 55 for 2% of Danish women, it also happens before the age of 40, and that's what we refer to as early menopause. And in most cases we don't really know why that happens, but it can be due to things like chemotherapy therapy.

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So roughly put one third experience fewer or no symptoms in menopause, one third experience moderate symptoms and one third experience symptoms that actually affect their quality of life. What symptoms you experience and how intense they are vary a lot from person to person, but there are at least 48 different symptoms related to menopause. So these are just some of them and some of the most common ones are sleep disturbances

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and hot flashes, mood swings, anxiety, things like that. But menopause definitely affects the entire body and mind. When we talk about how long it lasts, we talk about for how many years do you experience these symptoms that I just showed before. So typically two to seven years, but for some people it lasts just a few months and for other people it lasts more than 10 years. So you can actually start having symptoms 10 years

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before your last period, and you can have symptoms 10 year after your last period as well. And lastly, things that has an influence on what the individual's menopause is like are the genetics. So you can ask your mother what age she was at and also what symptoms she experienced and there might be similarities. And then how your body is constructed, your lifestyle, so what do you eat, how do you sleep? And then lastly, your personal resources.

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So does your work feel meaningful? And what is your general perception of aging and menopause? So those were the hard facts about menopause. And now I'll dive a bit more into our research and what it actually feels like to be in menopause. So during this project we've done a lot of secondary research and then we have been involving primarily these two experts,

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both to learn about the uses, learn about menopause, but also to validate everything we design to make sure that it makes sense from a clinical point of view, and also that we don't harm anyone with our design. And lastly, we've been involving the users to really get to know what it's like to be in menopause and also to test out all of our ideas to make sure they actually bring value. So to point to one quote from our research, one

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of the women we interviewed referred to menopause as similar to this day, were Mette Frederiksen shut down the country. So if you replace some of Mette's words it goes like, dear woman, on your first day of perimenopause, what I'm going to say now will have major consequences for you starting today. Your body will slowly shut down. We don't know how long it will last and exactly what it entails. It'll be really challenging and you'll have to adjust to a new reality.

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So we thought that kind of gave a good picture of what it feels like for some people at least to go into this phase of life with so many uncertainties. But what we found in our research is that meeting the world in menopause can make you feel lost and frustrated, shameful, all of these different emotions, however, getting rid of the cycle and also having all the life experience

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that you do can also make you feel wiser, more free, stronger, more confident, and all of these emotions over here. And obviously we wanna design something for people in menopause. We wanna reduce all of these. We wanna reinforce all of these. So some of the people we interviewed also referred to menopause as walking through a desert without a GPS. And what we found in our research is that if you did actually

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live in the desert alone without any people, any society, any systems around you, chances are that you would actually experience other emotions that the ones I just showed. Because we found that besides from just the symptoms you feel yourself, it plays a big role that you go into a world that meets you and requires something from you, shapes you. All of this is really important for how you experience menopause.

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So for that reason, we have been looking into the system around menopause a bit, and we've been working with this arena. So the individual menopause, the individual's relations, the society around us and the nature that we came from. These are some of the symptoms, are no the main actors in this system. So if you connect all of the challenges in between all of these actors, it starts to look quite complex.

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So to give an idea about some of the system dynamics within the system, I'll give an example in a second. And the example is all based on our research, our interpretation, and it only focuses on the negative emotions that I showed before. So imagine this. So for a reason, when you approach the forties or the late forties, we don't know the reason, but your sex hormone levels starts to decrease as you approach your late forties.

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So you start to experience changes in your body and mind, that perhaps you can't sleep or you experience vaginal dryness or dizziness during the day. And since you know your body pretty well at this stage of life, it confuses you a bit and you don't know what's going on. Since menopause is a taboo in many social circles you probably don't think of menopause as the first thing when you start to experience these symptoms.

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And also it's not the first thing that your partner and friends might think of. And your mother might not have told you a lot about her menopause. And also in the Danish school system, it's not a priority to teach kids about menopause. So also the perception in our, the western society about the ideal body and being a strong independent woman can make you feel a bit insecure or shameful about all of these symptoms, which means

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that you might not speak too loud about it, which just reinforces this taboo. And because of your symptoms, you might at some point feel that you have a hard time meeting the expectations at work. So perhaps you struggle with staying awake during your fixed work hours or perhaps uncontrollable hot flashes during a meeting embarrass you. So your work environment is not really fit for your menopause.

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That might be because you workplace don't know a lot about menopause, maybe because it's not really on the agenda in the industry association. So you don't, you might not feel comfortable talking to your manager about this and really figuring out how to adapt your work situation to your menopause. And then also the ageism that lives in thrives in our culture and makes you wanna come off as someone who can definitely handle all the tasks that you usually handle.

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So not feeling like you're underperforming at work causes a lot of stress. And stress is something that reinforces all of these symptoms. So to just, yeah, at some point you might go on sick leave because it becomes so bad. And to put effect on that one third of all Danish women struggle with work life in menopause. So it means that highly skilled people who have been in the workforce for decades certainly start to compromise on career ambitions, reject tasks

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and promotions or even go on sick leave or quit. But since you feel like you're sick, you decide to go to the doctor and the doctor can say for sure what it is. It might be menopause, but it could also be other things. And that makes you frustrated. You don't feel taken seriously, but you did get a referral to a gynecologist, however, they don't have any time slots for the next three months. So that's kind of discouraging.

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And then there could be multiple reasons why the doctor doesn't exactly know what's going on with you. And one thing could be that you might not have the full overview yourself as of what's actually happening because a lot of different things is happening. It could also be the political decision on how the health system needs to prioritize its resources. So how much can we investigate every single person? So home from the doctor, it feels like you need

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to be become the expert yourself. So you start Googling, but you find a lot of different information, a lot of misinformation and it confuses you a lot, but also brings up fear because you can tell that your symptom match very well with other more serious conditions like cancer. And the reason why you find all this misinformation might be the lack of research in menopause. So since the female body is super complex in itself,

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since menopause is not categorized as a disease, it can be quite difficult to get some funding for researching in menopause. And then there is also just a historical gender data gap. And we don't know too much about the female body, but based on all of the system dynamics that I just exemplified, these are the three areas that we decided for the app that we would see if we could intervene in. So misinformation, myth and conflicting advice confuse

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and frustrate people in menopause. And the second one, people in menopause struggle to get clarity and guidance from the healthcare system leading to fear and discouragement. And the last menopause being a taboo causes people in menopause to feel ashamed, insecure, and afraid of the future. So to see if we can intervene these different areas, these were our three strategies for the app. So we want to offer users credible information about

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menopause and contribute to more research within the area. Secondly, we want to provide users with an overview of a menopause, allowing them to get the right treatment and act on the menopause. And lastly, we want to give users the courage and language to open up conversations about menopause to reduce stigma. So to help us implement these different interventions, we have created these seven design principles that we have been using throughout the entire process

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to make the right design decisions. So they're based on our research, they are informing, de-stigmatizing, action oriented, inclusive, trustworthy, optimistic and calming. And Marina is now going to show you the app and also dig into a few of these to show you how we work with these in the design of the app. Yes, but

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before I go into all of the details of the design, I'm just gonna take a quick look at the functionality of the app. So the goal of the app is to give the user tools and knowledge needed to have the best possible journey throughout their menopause. So on a daily basis they can log their sleep quality, their physical and mental wellbeing, if they had any symptoms and which symptoms they had and if they had their period or not. You can also keep track of any kind of treatments that you're doing or any habits

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that might influence your menopause journey. For example, if you exercise daily, everything you log is gathered in an overview, yes, it's working, so we show patterns and correlations that can help you find out if, for example, your habits are beneficial for your menopause. So for example, if there is an overlap in the days that you exercised and the days where you tracked fewer hot flashes or also how much sleep quality can affect your general wellbeing.

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The app also shows statistics that aim to help you communicate more efficiently with your doctor. So for example, which symptoms are the ones that are affecting you the most or how your wellbeing has changed over time. All your logging data also helps the app know what kind of content to show you. It is a quite simple logic. So if you track joint pain a lot, then you will get content about joint pain. And we have a lot of different types of content.

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So we have of course scientific research articles, but we also have personal stories from people that are currently in or have previously been in menopause. We have audios that give you mindfulness exercises or videos for physical exercise and a bunch other formats. And what we also have is a symptom lexicon where you can look up any sort of symptoms that you have and you can learn what the symptoms feel like.

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When would it be important to visit a doctor and if the symptom disappears or persists after menopause. Now we dive a little bit deeper into the design of it all. So when you're designing for a stigmatized topic you have to take on a lot of considerations on how to communicate. And especially when we market something to this very niche target group of women, a lot of times the narrative can take on this like girl boss,

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female empowerment vibe. So we tell women to rock their menopause or to own or even conquer their menopause if it's as if it's something that's not just a part of them or a part of our lives, but as something that you need to kind of gain control over. And that can be helpful for some people. But to others it can seem like we're not acknowledging the actual struggle that the women are going through. So it's kind of a bit like telling someone who's drowning

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to beat the ocean instead of acknowledging that they're actually struggling to stay above water. And some might find strength in that framing, but to others it feels like it dismisses the reality of how overwhelming that experience can actually be. Of course, you can also go the complete opposite of this and tell people that they are drowning and they just need to suffer through it. So if you search menopause on Google images, you will find a lot of pictures of worried women

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of wilting uterine and time clocks running out. And then with generative AI, we get a whole new beautiful depiction of people in menopause. So we have these two extremes, and of course it's always easier to go all into one direction and work with that. But because we are working with such a sensitive and private and personal topic, exactly those gray zones in between the black and white are the ones who we can actually make our user feel heard and feel understood.

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So on that spectrum we also find our brand personality. We're neither a lighthearted optimist, nor are we the serious pessimist. We try to be realistic, but with an optimistic outlook. We're not the authoritarian doctor who thinks that they know your body better than you. But we're also not the friend who's not telling you the whole truth because we want to be nice and don't want to hurt your feelings. So we want to be a trusted professional, both scientifically grounded and empathetic.

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We're not teenagers anymore, but we're also not close to dying. So the energy that we want to communicate is kind of this confident, grounded energy and where we celebrate the wisdom and the resilience that comes with just being in this stage of life. So I think you see where I'm going with this. It's a lot about playing with the balance between the two extremes, and that can also make the visual design process very interesting because you get to play a lot with contrast and frictions.

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And throughout our process we had a bunch more of these scales. And through those we constructed the brand narrative, which is another tool to help us kind of create a visual design that is very consistent with the research that we found out in the beginning of the process for our brand narrative. It was very important to us that we challenge how we see menopause and aging in the western society. So in our culture we often see menopause as the end

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of something and it is the end of our reproductive life. But because so much of women's value is bound to their ability to bear children, it can feel like menopause also marks the end of your womanhood and the end of your value to society. In Japan, it's very different. Menopause is seen as a transition rather than an end, and they have this concept called konenki, that frames it as a second spring. So it's seen as a time of regeneration, of transformation

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and kind of a new found purpose of passing on that knowledge and that wisdom. So it is a bit similar to the grandmother effect that Kris has talked about in the beginning. So we're not reinventing the wheel with this one, but the second spring analogy made us think about aligning the menopause transition to the seasons where each one comes with its own changes and its own challenges, but also with its own beauty. So the perimenopause is where the bodies release what is no longer needed.

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Just like trees are shedding their leaves in autumn, making room for the new growth, the roots are growing deeper and we become more grounded. Then winter is the time for relaxation and rest and kind of gives us a chance to focus on the essential and then gives way for our version of spring, the post menopause where it's not this like delicate rebirth of youth, but it's more mature and more rooted, thriving

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where we have found out what really matters to us. So kind of like trees throughout the season, the human body also adapts and becomes resilient throughout the life phases. And menopause is just a natural time of transition into something new. And we want to create the space where we encourage people to embrace that transition and also recognize their own resilience through this. So even though you won't see a lot of trees changing their leaves in the app we found

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that the narrative is a very nice guide, to help us on how and what we communicate through the app, both in terms of the wording, but also in terms of the visuals. So based on a narrative on the design principles and on the brand personality we came up with the visual direction of the app and it really aims to reflect these contrasts between the two ends of the scales that we saw before and that notion of transitioning. So we have the contrast between the dark,

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which goes more into the serious and professional direction and the light, which should bring you some optimism and should seem approachable and the gradient transition between the two. And similar with the illustrations, which are a combination of sharp edges, but then blurry surfaces to kind of represent that balance between being honest and factual and scientific, but also personal, calm and soft. And the typography, even though it was given by Kræfens Bekæmpelse before,

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because that's their brand typography, even though we didn't choose it ourselves, it also fits very much into that vibe because for example, the overskrift cut is this balance between a sans and a serif font. Yes, back to the design principles that Kris has mentioned before. Of course we used all of them throughout the process to help make design decisions, but I'm gonna highlight just a few of them and give examples, but also challenges, that we came across.

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The first one I'll get into is the calming principle, which is to encourage and allow users to relax and make minimal effort when using the app. So you heard before about the negative feelings that people in menopause can experience, the fear, the frustration, the stress, the overwhelm, and of course we want to alleviate that. And the calming principle is the one that's most essential for achieving that. So ideally the user will log their function, will use the logging functionality every single day.

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So that means that they might encounter that functionality in a lot of different emotional, physical, but also cognitive states. So it's very important that exactly that functionality doesn't stress or overwhelm them further. And usually what we see in a lot of commercial apps is that you want to reduce the amount of clicks that it takes to perform a certain action. So in an app with a lot of different features, that means that you might end up with something that's kind of dashboard looking where each of the different features has its own widgets.

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So you have quick access to the feature. In our case, we started out with something that was also somewhat dashboard looking, but then we decided to reduce the amount of decisions that they have to take to do what they need to do and the cognitive load. So instead of overwhelming them with a lot of different options, we combined all the things that they have to track or should track on a daily basis into one flow that kind of takes you by the hand and guides you through the different questions,

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which then reduces the amount of decisions they can take from nine to only two, or even one if you're on post menopause and don't have the bleeding tracker anymore. So this though, it does increase the amount of clicks that requires, for example, if you want to log that you exercise that day, from one on the dashboard to a few more because you will only meet that habit screen in the flow. But it will, like, you are gonna meet that action in a way that is

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where you can fully focus only on that task and you're not getting distracted or overwhelmed by three other contexts on a whole dashboard. And it is kind of a fine balance where you need to consider are we actually guiding the user or are we locking them into something and maybe creating a dark pattern that nudges users to do something that they don't want to do. But if you get that balance right, it can reduce the unnecessary cognitive load and also reduce the decision fatigue.

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The next principle I'm going into is inclusive, meaning to recognize human diversity and embrace people and transitions of all types and shapes. So I think inclusion is a little bit like sustainability in the sense that you'll never be fully sustainable, you'll never be fully inclusive. So there's always room for improvement. And that's also true for our app. There are a lot of things that we did to make it more inclusive and more accessible, but there's also a lot of things that we would like to do in future versions of the app.

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So we are following the accessibility standards to a high level, beyond just meeting like the right color contrasts, screen reader requirements, and so on and so on. So as mentioned before, with the calming principle to recognize the different mental and cognitive states that the user is in and to cater to them also aligns with the inclusive principle. But besides reducing, for example, the decision fatigue, that could also mean that you don't split flows into different screens.

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If that means that it would require the user to memorize what happened in the screen before. One thing that we definitely could have done better is gathering a more diverse group of people for our research and user testing. So more people from different cultures with different gender expressions, abilities, financial backgrounds, et cetera. And in reality, that's always very tricky to do on a specific budget and in a specific timeline, but we are working on something that will make

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that easier for digital product projects in the future. So if you are interested in that, you can ask after the Morgenbooster. Yes. And then lastly, the topic of body size and body shape did come up a lot when we were working on the illustration direction. And it's because we didn't just want to show the perfect body or reproduce beauty standards. So in the end, we ended up with something that where we actually rarely show the whole body.

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So we only show sections to give less of an indication of how big, small, tall a body is. And we also only ever show a person when it actually makes sense. Otherwise, we try to paint the scene with objects. So for example, if you're looking at an article about sleepless nights, you don't always need to see a tired person. You also get the idea if you see a lamp in the night, and it might even be more relatable if you've been in a situation where you just cannot fall asleep or you keep waking up and you turn the lamp on and off.

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And then the last principle I want to highlight is trustworthy, meaning instilling trust and offering caring, honesty and transparency without intimidating the users. Obviously in our case, it's also a big help that the app is a project by Kræftens Bekæmpelse which is a very trusted brand in Denmark and also an NGO. So the users know that the purpose of the app is not to make a quick profit. But apart from that, we also implemented into the I for example, that we always ask why we're asking specific questions.

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For example, in the onboarding, we're also very careful about what kind of data we collect and very transparent about why we collected what we collect and what the data is used for. And that is also the first point on our little guideline list on how to design for a stigmatized topic. Of course, it's not a one size fits all, but it's a little overview of what helped us in the project and might also be helpful for you. So as I said before, collect data only if it's

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necessary and provide full transparency over the what and why and give users also the possibility to reject data collection and the possibility to delete all the data that you have on them if they no longer want to use your service. Secondly, continuously involve and test with users. They are the experts in what they need and how they're feeling, and you should also advocate for their needs, even if it means challenging the clients, the collaborators or the shareholders. And luckily we didn't have to do that

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as much in this project, but especially if you're working with a client who has a commercial interest, it is your responsibility to not put that commercial interest over the needs of your users. So while users are the experts in their own experience, of course you should always also involve subject matter experts. So that for us was the medical experts. And if you involve them early and you collaborate closely, you can ensure that everything is valid and not harmful.

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Fourth, don't try to build a Swiss Army knife. Focus on a few and the most valuable features and make those as best as they can be. Instead of making a lot that only works a little bit, choose words and tone wisely. So the tone of voice and the choice of words have a big impact on the feeling of your product and also how inclusive it is. So for example, that goes for gender sensitive language, but that also goes for reading difficulty. So the more complicated you communicate,

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the more people you exclude from your information. Consider anonymity in name and logo or the app icon. And this one, it very much depends on what you are aiming for. So if you want to break a taboo on a stigmatized topic, it might even make sense to be very obvious about what service you're providing. But if it might be harmful for a person, if someone else finds out what service they're using, you should consider making the name logos on very inconspicuous.

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And then the last one, be very mindful about what your visuals communicate. Design always communicates something, so you have to be intentional about what it is telling the viewer. Now we will hear from Line. I can understand if some of you are wondering why an organization like Kræftens Bekæmpelse is taking on a project like this. I'll do my very best to explain this in the next 10 minutes.

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So it's very important for me to start by saying that cancer is a disease. Menopause is not, it's a completely natural part of a woman's life. And menopause itself of course doesn't trigger cancer. But however, there are some indirect connections. First of all, overall lifestyle has an impact on both. It's no surprise that an overall healthy life lifestyle reduces the risk of cancer, but it can also relieve some of the symptoms

[00:36:03–00:36:30]
you experience through menopause. We've already heard Kristine talking about some symptoms, like lack of energy and sleep issues. And this can negatively affect both eating habits and exercise habits and thereby affecting your overall health and increase risks of worse diseases. Also weight gain is a very common thing to experience through menopause, and that of course also

[00:36:31–00:37:00]
increases the risk of several types of cancer later in life. Cancer symptoms are sometimes confused with menopause symptoms and vice versa. Hormone therapy, which is used to relieve symptoms through menopause, increases some forms of cancer, increases the risk of some form of cancer. And then as Marina just mentioned both are stigmatized topics.

[00:37:02–00:37:31]
What do I do here? So we've just seen how menopause and cancer are connected through symptom stigma and lack of knowledge. But why should Kræftens Bekæmpelse take on this challenge? Well, because when you look at what's wrong in the world and what we're especially good at, it comes quite clear that this is a good match. If we look at what's wrong in the world from our point of, this project's point of view, we know

[00:37:31–00:38:00]
that menopause causes serious physical and mental challenges and affect life quality. There's lack of research on menopause, which leads to misinformation and conflict in recommendations, and menopause symptoms as I said before, is often confused with cancer, stress and other diseases, and it is accessible. On the other hand,

[00:38:00–00:38:28]
in KB we have access to researchers and medical professionals who understand both cancer prevention and overall women's health. This allows us to approach menopause in a well-informed and knowledge-based, evidence-based perspective. We are a strong and trustworthy brand. We are used to talking about taboo and we work with some of the country's best doctors and gynecologists.

[00:38:29–00:38:59]
And a part of KB's mission is to reduce the number of cancer cases. So with menopause, we spotted a need in the market. We knew that we would have access to knowledge and experts within the field, and at the same time, it seemed like a natural extension of our mission, and ambitions to prevent cancer. So, I don't wanna go too much into this

[00:38:59–00:39:29]
'cause we've already been through it, but this is to give you an idea of what women meet when they start Googling. Many women look online or ask in forums, hoping to find answers, when they start experiencing symptoms. But they're often met with like, strong opinions. For example, here we see on hormones and, yeah, ads for products that claim to

[00:39:29–00:39:57]
reduce symptoms. And also for us, like Facebook, there's a lot of Facebook groups where people discuss and advise each other. And we've even seen examples that some women actually advise each other to buy illegal, medicine in Denmark and having them shipped from abroad. So that's why Kræftens Bekæmpelse has a role

[00:39:57–00:40:26]
to play here, to bring clarity and credibility and care into to this space. So our goal is to give women something they're missing today, a safe and reliable platform where they can find evidence-based knowledge, practical support, and a sense of clarity during menopause. And as you've seen from Marina and Kris's slides, we want to connect deeply with the target group, not only through facts, but also through content

[00:40:26–00:40:53]
and tools, stories to make them feel seen and supported and in control. So yeah, and the app is the core of the project, and this is why we are here, what we are here to talk about today. But it is a part of a larger ecosystem. We'll also be sharing basic and evidence based knowledge on cancer.dk, which is what we've always done in cancer relation.

[00:40:53–00:41:22]
So we will continue to do that with with this topic. But for those who want more in depth support the app will offer a more personal experience. On top of that, we'll be having a small web shop and host events like webinars. These are familiar formats for us at Kræftens Bekæmpelse, but this subscription based app is a completely new kind of offer.

[00:41:23–00:41:49]
And importantly to note that any revenue from this will go directly back into cancer research and support. So to know why it's different from how we fundraise normally and how we do fundraising activities in KB, I wanted to tell you a bit more about how we do the fundraising and what the money goes to. We are a private organization funded by donations from the public.

[00:41:50–00:42:18]
79% of our income comes from the public and only 3% from the government. The funds are located in three different areas as you see here. There are two main reasons why people chooses to support our organization. One is that people either are affected by cancer themselves or know someone who is. And the other one is that they want to support

[00:42:18–00:42:47]
research that can help them if they should be affected in the future. So we are fundraising through different initiatives driven by both volunteers and employees. And we have nearly 400,000 paying members equivalent to approximately 10% of the adult population in Denmark. But we also fundraise through a number of different campaigns, and most of you probably know Knæk Cancer with the big show that we have in October. But as any other organization, there's a few challenges

[00:42:47–00:43:15]
to be aware of if we want people to continue to donate. So while some are loyal members, others don't want to be too attached to one organization, the competition between NGO's have increased over the last year. And, that's also this crowdfunding that's been rising the last couple years. And the most loyal supporters are plus 60 years, of our supporters.

[00:43:15–00:43:44]
So to stay relevant, we need to look into other ways of fundraising and new target groups. And we're always on the lookout for new ways to fundraise, and that's why we work with innovation in KB. And app is an initiative that's sprung from that. With menopause, we saw a window of opportunity and this gives us something entirely new, a way

[00:43:44–00:44:13]
to fundraise while we're giving back value to people who support us. And at the same time, we believe that this project is gonna support KB's mission to reduce the number of cancer cases. So there's been a lot of ideas along the way. During this project one of the ideas we've been quite fond about, it's integrations to other health apps

[00:44:13–00:44:43]
and devices, could be Apple Watch or Gaming Connect. This would give the user more detailed information and more specific data and insights, but it requires a lot from tech. So for now, we'll leave that. We are looking into B2B offerings. We believe that our app could be useful for organizations who wants to create an inclusive environment for people in menopause.

[00:44:44–00:45:12]
Then we're looking into, or we have been looking into export of health data. It could be valuable for the women to actually export their insights and bring to the doctor's appointment or to the gynecologist when they have their sessions with them. So there's been a lot of ideas and there's plenty to work on going forward. We do have some future plans for the app.

[00:45:12–00:45:41]
We are looking to expand in the B2B area. In January, I had a meeting with Københavns Kommune who was interested in actually helping the citizens through menopause. And they're not the only one. Recently I stumbled upon a McKinsey report from May, 2024 that estimates that closing the gap in research and innovation within women's health could contribute with approximately 30 billion Danish Kroner

[00:45:41–00:46:09]
to the Danish economy annually. So this corresponds with around, to around 1% of Denmark's current GDP. So we would love to contribute to this through initiatives like the ones you see here, learnings, courses, physical and online events and webinars. If you want to collaborate or share your thoughts on this, reach out after the Morgenbooster or catch me on LinkedIn.

[00:46:10–00:46:36]
So there's nothing much more left to say than when is the this cool app launched. We'll, we are launching, autumn this year and if you want to know when, to get news, scan the QR code and sign up for our newsletter. Marina, So some final thoughts.

[00:46:38–00:47:07]
First of all, menopause is something that we should all know a little bit more about and cater to. So workplaces should be able to accommodate it. It needs more funding for research in menopause. And even as private people who maybe aren't close to being in menopause or who will never be in menopause, it's important to have a better understanding for the ones around us that are. Secondly, our part can only ever be part of the solution. Our app can only be a part of the solution. But there's so much more to do.

[00:47:08–00:47:36]
So if we want to create systemic change, that takes a lot of time and requires multiple interventions and multiple leverage points. So if you are working in the space and you want to join forces, again, please come talk to us. And then lastly, consider our guiding principles. If you are designing for a stigmatized group, they helped us a lot during the project, so they might also be helpful for you. And before we go into a question round, we want to leave you with a little clip that presents yet another perspective on menopause.

[00:47:37–00:48:06]
Women are in pain, but it's our physical destiny. Period pains, sore boobs, childbirth we carry it within ourselves throughout our life. Men they, they have to seek it out. They invent all these gods and demons and princess so they can feel guilty about things, which is something we do very well on our own. And then they create war so they can feel things and touch each other.

[00:48:07–00:48:34]
And when they're asking more, they can play rugby. And we have it all going on in here inside. We have pain on a cycle for years and years and years. And then just when you feel you are making peace with it all happen. The menopaose come, the f*****g menopause coming, and it is the most wonderful f*****g thing in the world.

[00:48:34–00:49:01]
And yes, your entire pelvic floor crumbles and you get f*****g hot and that no one cares. But then you are afraid no longer a slave, no longer a, a machine with parts. You're just a person in business. I was told it was horrendous air. Horrendous. But then it's magnificent. That's reported.

[00:49:04–00:49:12]
Yes. Thank you for listening. And now we open, now we open a little question round.