Designing Tech for Good feat. Elvie

As part of our Design For Good initiative, we aim to seek out and promote those that are designing for good. To shine a light on how creative innovation can be a driver for positive change and to raise awareness of the people and teams making it happen.

Next up, we’d like to feature a company with a mission to improve women’s lives through smarter technologies. For this, we had a chat with Tania Boler, CEO at Elvie.

ADLIB: For some background, who is Elvie and what do you stand for as a business?

Tania: Our mission is to improve women’s lives through smarter technology. Since 2013 we’ve launched two products. The first, Elvie Trainer, is an award-winning Kegel trainer and app used to help women strengthen their pelvic floor via fun, five-minute workouts. The second, Elvie Pump, is the world’s first silent wearable breast pump, transforming the lives of new mothers.

We want to empower women to talk more openly about the health of their bodies and to seek support when they need it. How do we do it? By focusing on the issues that matter – so that no-one feels they have to suffer in silence – and by putting women back in control of their health with our technology products. We want to become the number one connected female health technology company in the world.

ADLIB: From your perspective, how does Elvie aim to address social challenges through innovative tech?

Tania: Ultimately, we are creating products that help women in some of the most difficult moments of their lives; whether it is when becoming a mother when dealing with pelvic floor weakness from childbirth to menopause, and everything in between. In addition to supporting women with our products, we want more people to talk openly about women’s health concerns and to help make sure women have the right treatment options and support available to them when they need it most.

We know that these conditions have costs, not only for women but for society. For example, incontinence, which impacts around 1 in 3 women, ​is estimated to cost the NHS in the region of £233 million each year in treatment costs. Even if we only helped solve a small number of these cases, the benefits to women and the NHS would be huge.

ADLIB: When it comes to product design, do you have any top tips for those looking to design for good / femtech specifically?

Tania: At Elvie we approach problems as women, armed with genuine female insight. Using this as a starting point means that we pinpoint the exact need for women and innovate to fulfil this from the word go.

As a result, our products have been described by customers as ‘game-changing’ and have created staggering advances to any existing women’s health technology. Our team includes world-class engineers, scientific and design experts from the likes of Dyson and Google who have the ultimate goal of creating products that women love to use.

ADLIB: In your opinion, what is the most important factor to consider when marketing for a female audience?

Tania: All too often female marketing has been confined to a very narrow set of ‘rules’, commonly feeding into archaic stereotypes and only featuring certain kinds of women. But women aren’t a narrow category – we makeup half the planet and are infinitely diverse. At Elvie, we avoid blanket female stereotypes and pink spin-offs at all costs. It means our imagery and messages are more inclusive and more reflective of our users. We don’t shy away from taboo subjects either.

For decades women’s bodies have been shrouded in mystery and stigma, preventing many from getting the care they deserve. We fight this by candidly talking about topics surrounding female health and campaigning to raise awareness of issues such as incontinence, even if we cause a little controversy in the process. Women like our honesty and that we are finally creating a space to have these vital conversations.

Thanks so much for sharing, Tania!