Designing for Wow: Empowering Women Through a Pelvic Health App

In the dynamic realm of technology design, the User Empowering Design (UED) emerges as the next frontier, elevating user interfaces from merely functional and engaging to profoundly impactful. UED is a framework that extends beyond usability and user experience (UX) to address users’ sense of control, self-perception, and personal growth. Drawing on layered psychological needs and the Kano model of user expectations, UED positions empowerment as the “wow” factor in interaction design, enabling technologies to support not just task completion or emotional satisfaction, but personal development. We present the case of EZpeeZ, a mobile application designed to empower women managing pelvic floor challenges. Developed through a value-driven, co-design process that integrates playful physiotherapy exercises, humorous interaction, and empathic microcopy, EZpeeZ demonstrates how UED can reshape stigmatized health topics into experiences of control, confidence, and dignity. Finally, we outline plans for evaluating the app’s impact on users’ quality of life and emotional well-being, including focus groups and eye-tracking studies. This work contributes a concrete example of UED in practice and argues for empowerment as a practical imperative in human-centered design.