Over 5 million pregnancy tests are sold in the UK every year, but not one of them has been designed inclusively for blind and partially sighted women.

But blind and low vision women have no choice but to involve other people to read the results for them.

Taking a pregnancy test is an intimate and emotional moment, and something that all women should be able to keep private.

But raising awareness of the issue wasn’t enough, and with a limited media spend, we needed something that would get the world talking and that the healthcare industry couldn’t ignore.

So, to prove that change was possible, we created a prototype of the world’s first accessible pregnancy test.

Using in depth ethnographic research with blind and partially sighted women to inform every part of the design, the prototype allowed women to read their results by touch.
Along with a large tactile pad that used raised nodules to indicate a result, it was also bigger and designed to be easier to navigate by touch, utilizing bright colours so those with partial vision could see it more easily.

Then, alongside a supporting print and radio campaign that dramatized the lack of privacy afforded to blind women due to the inaccessible design of existing tests, we released the designs and research to the world.

The campaign sparked conversations worldwide, and as of mid-January we had 105 pieces of earned global coverage with a reader/viewership of 2.54billion people.
We also had 3.37 million social impressions with a reach of 23.47million.

But most importantly we grabbed the attention of one major player, ClearBlue the UK’s largest manufacturer of pregnancy tests.

Together with RNIB they are working on a plan to bring an accessible test to market, so one day every woman will be able to take a pregnancy test independently, no matter how they see.

Because design should be for everyone.