Tota
Consultant UX Researcher | Healthcare | 2025, 4 months
Tota is a fem-tech startup advancing women's health through vaginal microbiome insights. Its at-home vaginal microbiome test aims to support women across areas including fertility, menopause and common vaginal symptoms.
The challenge
Understand Tota’s target audience, market position and opportunities for improvement, uncovering the needs, behaviours and attitudes shaping women’s experiences of vaginal health and at-home testing.
My approach
I built a four-month research programme combining UX research, market analysis and competitive research.
01 | Explore
Audited the existing website and user journeys, reviewed market and competitor context, and created proto-personas to establish hypotheses.
02 | Research
Recruited 200+ women aged 18–75 and conducted quantitative and qualitative research to understand needs, behaviours, motivations and attitudes towards vaginal health and at-home testing.
03 | Synthesise
Combined survey, interview and market findings to identify key patterns and audience differences, using affinity mapping to synthesise the qualitative research.
04 | Define
Refined the proto-personas into evidence-based audience segments and translated the research into recommendations for product, positioning and communication.
Key Findings
Younger, digitally engaged women showed the strongest interest in the vaginal microbiome and willingness to pay, particularly around fertility.
Health-seeking behaviours differed significantly by age: 44% of younger women searched online for symptoms compared with 23% of older women, while OTC treatment was more common among older women (41% vs. 25%).
Willingness to pay varied by use case, with users placing higher value on some health concerns than others.
The findings challenged existing assumptions about Tota’s target audience and highlighted two segments with the strongest combination of unmet needs, willingness to pay and openness to at-home testing.
Outcome
Tota gained an evidence-based understanding of its audiences and clearer direction on who to target, how to communicate its value, and where to focus the product experience. The research replaced initial assumptions with validated user insights, giving the team a stronger foundation for future product development, positioning and market strategy.
"I had the pleasure of bringing Fi on board to support our UX research at our early-stage start-up, and she exceeded every expectation. Fi is a self-starter who organised the research process from the ground up. I really appreciated her ability to get stuck in, to work independently, and to structure the project appropriately. Fi was able to cut through the noise, get to the heart of complex issues, and tease out insights from our customer groups. Fi completed competitor research, conducted customer surveys and interviews, and produced customer personas. Thanks to her work, we now have a nuanced understanding of our customer segments. I couldn't recommend her more."
Gabrielle Glesson-Solomon
Co-founder & CEO at Tota
Need a hand understanding your users?
info@designbyfi.com
Bourg-Saint-Maurice, France, 73700
© 2026 by fiona patuck.