Empathy-driven solutions

Product Innovation

How might we better support women navigating menopause, a phase often overlooked in health?

Overview

Working within Admiral Pioneer, Admiral Group's innovation hub (FTSE 100 company), I created a rapid MVP for a menopausal support service, reaching 100+ early adopters. While the business ultimately deprioritised the opportunity, the project taught me about empathy-led design, fast iteration, and social impact at scale.

The challenge

Menopause is a major life stage for women, yet remains underrepresented in both health services and workplace conversations. Our team identified this as an area where support is lacking — particularly for working women managing symptoms privately and without guidance.

We aimed to test the potential of a digital health service to offer support, reduce stigma, and validate market fit — fast.

Team

2 Service Designers, 1 Growth expert, 2 Commercial. Support from: Risk, Legal and Compliance, Tech, Data, Finance.

My role

Service Designer: conducted user research, facilitated co-creation, and user testing.

Period

February 2022 - October 2022
Admiral Pioneer - UK

Discover & Define

Unravelling the Opportunity
We began by mapping our assumptions, analysing the market and existing solutions to understand the landscape and identify potential opportunities.
Empathic User Research
Conducted 40+ user interviews with women in different menopause stages, their partners and helthcare experts.
Identified patterns around: isolation, lack of awareness, and professional support.
‍Validated insights with quantitative studies, 1500+ responses from menopausal women.
‍Co-created personas and mapped out common journeys and pain points with users.
Co-creating with Users
Facilitated 4 ideation workshops with users to generate and prioritise solution concepts.
Conducted unmoderated testing of the concept proposition on UserZoom.

Key Pain Points Identified

Awareness

Lack of education about menopause, its stages and its 30+ symptoms.

Access to Experts

NHS services lacking enough experienced GPs and specialists.

The Long Path of Diagnosis

Diagnosis in the UK takes an average of 12 months.

Support and Treatment

Misinformation about HRT and lack of non-medical health advice.

Develop & Deliver

Building and Testing a Quick MVP
‍Designed a “quick and dirty” pilot: an online diagnosis tool, followed by group sessions with experts and peers experiencing similar symptoms.
Worked with product designer to build branding and onboarding experience to feel safe and stigma-free, promoting community support and a holystic approach.
Live Testing with 100+ Users
Our first pilot of Nalah Life was tested within Admiral Group (10,000 employees).
‍We ran the pilot over 8 weeks. Monitored engagement and gathered user feedback.
Joined most of the group consultations, helping me identify challenges and ways of improving their format.

Pilot Outcome

Through this project, 77 people got free access to a immediate diagnosis which usually takes at least 12 months in the UK. They also got free holistic advice from different menopause experts including GPs, nurses, nutritionists and life style coaches.

The pilot ran for 2 months, with high engagement. Participants shared that the solution made them feel heard and supported during a challenging life stage:

111

users signed up

77

used our diagnosis tool

88%

rated the service as Good or Excellent

100%

attendees signed up for a follow up consultation

Despite these outcomes, the business deprioritised the opportunity due to projected market size vs investment potential — a key reminder of how social value and business value don’t always align.

My Learnings

As someone passionate about social innovation, this project resonated deeply with me. It reinforced the power of:

Rapid testing

The project has been a referent within Admiral Pioneer, why? Because we were able to deliver a rapid, low-tech pilot, with minimum investment, to validate the proposition and business viability.

Designing for real life

This project positively impacted 77 people through access to diagnosis and support, what I believe is already a win.

Co-creating with empathy

It deepened my conviction that service design can — and should — lead with care. And that when involving users through co-creation the results became more impactful.