Having used the Cherry Period Tracker App, now I can tell you when in your cycle you can get pregnant. I say this with a whisper because no one tells us these things when we’re teenagers, we figure them out for ourselves. Thanks to google and Apps, the things that were difficult for us to learn are now available in the public domain. Talk of ovulation and menstrual cycles. Some cycles can be confusing to a grown woman let alone a teenage girl.
Cherry Period Tracker has a calendar that shows you exactly where you are on a cycle. You first have to feed it with initial data about your cycle- length 28, 30, 31 days, period length- 2,3 or 4 days. It then predicts your next period, ovulation and even probability of pregnancy.
It’s free to access and has lots of information about reproductive health. The only catch is once you have it installed on your phone, it takes over your screen with display ads. And I mean AD heavy! I think that’s their revenue model. They have a premium version to get rid of ads though.
Suggestions for Improvements
I think as a woman, one experiences more emotions than just happy, sad, normal. How about adding emotions like craving for intimacy, touch, frustrated? Maybe these are very individual emotions and are difficult generalize. Why not then add a section for sexual desire or a more polite word? That is assuming they don’t want to seem like they are promoting sex to teenagers. Still, these are emotions felt by any natural woman. Anyway, this is one of those uncomfortable topics we don’t want to delve into so much, is it?
Pain- where is the pain exactly? I feel like this App could have been improved by prototyping with the actual end users- women. Only then, will they become fully practical for the end user. Women experience different types of pain during the menstrual cycle. There’s ovulation pain, menstrual cramps, back pain- where is the pain rather than just severe, moderate, mild and none.
Anyway, I might be overstretching my imagination here. Some of these suggestions may not be practical from a technical point of view.
Every platform with a freemium model also has freaky people who are lurking somewhere for fun. Teenagers asking questions on reproductive health might easily get misleading information. You should always be careful what you put online, and this applies to apps too.