Darshi Shah
I led the design and strategic direction of this project, focusing on integrating an AI-driven solution to enhance exercise recommendations for individuals who menstruate. Collaborating closely with industry partners at Hinge Health—including a Product Designer, UX Researcher, and Product Manager—I worked to align the design vision with both user needs and business priorities around menstrual health integration. Throughout the process, I sought feedback from healthcare professionals, product design experts, and end users to ensure the solution was clinically relevant, user-centered, and technically feasible.
This project was honored with the Outstanding HCI Capstone Project Award at the Georgia Institute of Technology—an achievement reserved for only two teams out of a cohort of 74 students. The award recognizes exceptional work in research, design, and impact, and is granted to teams that demonstrate innovation, rigor, and excellence in their capstone execution.
Hinge Health aimed to expand into the women’s health space to reach new user segments and improve overall satisfaction, with a parallel goal of integrating AI into their platform as a cost-effective enhancement. With broad possibilities, ranging from new menstruators to pregnant and menopausal users, the challenge was to identify a focused, high-impact entry point. This required aligning user needs with business goals, and iteratively developing and testing a solution to evaluate its feasibility, usefulness, and long-term value.
We designed an AI-powered, cycle-aware exercise recommendation system within the Hinge Health app. By factoring in each user’s menstrual cycle, symptoms, and energy levels, the AI delivers personalized, evidence-based exercise plans that adapt in real time. This ensures users not only manage pain more effectively but also stay active and feel supported throughout their cycle without disrupting existing routines.
We expanded the onboarding flow to capture users’ cycle information and patterns. To minimize extra effort, we also enabled Apple Health integration, so users could sync their existing period data without logging it separately in multiple apps.
The core of our solution is the new AI-powered Menstrual Insights section. Here, users can:
This intelligent combination of context, tracking, and education helps users feel informed, supported, and in control.
We redesigned the daily workout flow to be adaptive and flexible, using AI.
This AI-driven adaptability empowers users to stay active even on lower-energy days, while keeping workouts safe and manageable.
Feedback revealed dissatisfaction with the old progress view in Hinge Health. Users wanted richer, more meaningful insights. We redesigned the section to show exercise progress over time, including weekly, monthly, and yearly views. The new design highlights trends that motivate consistency and reinforce healthy habits.
To better understand our users and the impact of menstrual pain on their daily lives, we conducted a targeted survey.
Survey
40+ responses from individuals aged 18–30 experiencing menstrual pain and symptoms of Primary Dysmenorrhea.
Interviews
5 participants sharing in-depth personal experiences.
Goals:
Key Insights:
Insights from the survey and user interviews not only revealed key pain points and needs but also helped us clearly define our target persona. By mapping recurring patterns in experiences, goals, and challenges, we built a representative user profile to guide our design decisions. This persona ensured that every requirement and concept we explored addressed the needs of a clearly identified user, rather than a broad, generic audience.
Building on the insights from our survey and interviews, we translated user needs into clear design requirements that would guide our solution. These requirements ensured our concepts stayed grounded in real user challenges while aligning with project goals
We then explored the opportunity space through collaborative brainstorming and competitor analysis. This allowed us to identify potential features, understand market gaps, and gather inspiration from existing solutions—laying the groundwork for informed and targeted concept development.
Following our brainstorming, we created low-fidelity sketches of our proposed features and tested them with 19 participants (13 users and 6 experts) representing our target user group.
Objectives:
Findings:
Based on our initial concept testing, we made several design refinements:
We then conducted expert walkthroughs with four specialists in product design and women’s health.
Key Feedback:
Based on this feedback, we incorporated these changes into our final prototypes.
We conducted high-fidelity, task-based usability testing with four participants from our target user group.
Goal: The goal was to assess the clarity, usability, and perceived value of the integrated menstrual health features within the Hinge Health app.
Results:
This project highlighted the value of agility and resilience when navigating evolving requirements and user feedback. Clear communication within the team proved essential for aligning on priorities, and timeboxing helped us maintain momentum while meeting deadlines.
Looking ahead, opportunities remain to enhance the solution—such as integrating mood tracking, expanding exercise options tailored to menstrual phases, and conducting further user testing to uncover new insights and refine menstrual health features.
