

Applying empathy at an emotional moment
Seeing fertility results for the first time—whether they are “good” or “bad”—is high-stakes. Somehow, we needed to land on a visual tone that blended authenticity, credibility, and humanity. Modern Fertility aspires to reach women at the beginning of their reproductive decisions, so it’s critical to get this right and establish a high level of trust in order to be there with her over the course of her future decisions.


What's in a number?
After learning that her results are ready, the very first thing Modern Fertility’s customer sees when she enters her dashboard is a number. But what does that number mean? I went through a variety of iterations on the approach to scoring in order to strike the right balance—convey credibility through science while also sparking curiosity.
Because the number wants to be a jumping off point to dive deeper and learn more, it is meant to intrigue and avoid being off-putting or even demotivating. Early explorations around a 1-100 scale had too much of a connection to grading—leading to “bad v good” associations. Once a number got bigger, and nodded to an SAT scale, it was disambiguated, and that loss of grading association served as a benefit by inspiring women to want to learn more without triggering an unintended emotion or making her feel judged. Once she sees her number, she gets a quick snapshot of what it is, how it’s calculated, and what it means as a way to engage her in learning more. An affordance for next year—and the year after—helps create an expectation that monitoring your reproductive health is a journey.



I used Cami Dobrin's wonderful illustrations in some of the early concepts that were presented to Modern Fertility. Her style was tailor-made to soften the product experience and help provide comfort and community in something that could undoubtedly be quite scary.
When I reached out to Cami about producing the final illustrations, it was wonderful when she was on-board and we worked together to elevate the end result beyond my expectations.


