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This thesis explores the becoming of bodies with FemTech – female health technologies – motivated by the widespread use of reproductive health apps for tracking menstruation, fertility, and pregnancy. Empirically, the aim is to understand the implications of FemTech for what it means to have a body, to be a body, and to exist in relation to other bodies in a time when digital technologies have fundamentally transformed how we live, act, and interact in society. Theoretically, the aim is to expand how bodies are conceptualised, understood, and designed for within Human-Computer Interaction. Underpinned by relational ontologies, entanglement theories, and Karen Barad’s agential realism, this thesis approaches bodies as emerging relationally with technologies. It asks what bodies become with FemTech. Using thematic literature review, qualitative interviews, app walkthrough method, and autoethnography, it explores this question through five empirical studies which capture FemTech as phenomenon, the perspectives of developers and users, and the design of these technologies. Synthesising the findings from the empirical studies, I show how bodies emerge as what I call cyclic-reproductive with FemTech. Through intra-action with FemTech the body becomes a cyclic-reproductive force, an agency in itself. As the body becomes cyclic-reproductive it gains new meaning, lived experiences are reinterpreted, and the relationship between subject and body is transformed. The cyclic-reproductive body emerges as an agency that is ever-present and boundless, yet distinct from the subject. It becomes something that users cannot completely grasp or know, while remaining ever-present in their lives. In a concluding discussion, I argue that in order to understand what humans become with technologies, we must move beyond viewing technologies as fixed, designed artefacts and instead understand them as emergent phenomena that make particular constitutions of humans possible and impossible. Understanding bodies differently is to take responsibility in the mattering of bodies through design and technology, and I encourage researchers to think with entanglement theories in a pragmatic stretching and unstretching to make alternative perspectives on technologies visible and new worlds possible.

Digital applications for tracking pregnancy and fetal development are increasingly popular, yet we know little of how these technologies shape individual pregnancy experiences. This empirical study investigates how 17 expectants in Sweden use such apps to make sense of their pregnancies. It is grounded in feminist perspectives, highlighting the need to focus on women's health. Drawing on entanglement and flat ontology, we show how apps are part of socio-material configurations where they contribute to pregnancy meaning-making. We show how users experience a gradual realization that apps model ideal pregnancies and not the participants' own, how the app's commercial nature conflicts with many participants' ideals of pregnancy, and how participants continue to use apps despite this but engage in selective use. All to support ways of making pregnancy in desired ways. Finally, we outline how users engage with pregnancy apps and the resulting natureculture arrangements where bodies and technology are intertwined and co-constructed. We argue that entanglement should be seen as a process, not a state, as users continually negotiate their use, engaging in what could be called processes of untangling.

FemTech, technology often in the forms of apps developed to specifically target female health issues, have billions of users globally. Yet, despite the popularity of e.g., period trackers or pregnancy apps, we know little about the potential impact of these technologies, often developed outside controlled and regulated healthcare. How interactive technology is designed, and in our case the cycle represented through the design, has the potential to shape women's understanding of menstruation. In this study we analyse the interaction design of nine of the most downloaded menstruation apps, asking how commercial menstruation apps represent the cycle through their interaction design. While previous research has criticized these types of apps for lacking privacy and for enforcing normative ideals on women, they are often marketed in terms of female empowerment and users do indeed seem to find them very useful for period and fertility tracking. However, the term 'empowerment' is today used broadly and is known for having many potential meanings. Even within the field of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), 'empowerment' is used frequently but rarely explicitly defined. The question then becomes what empowerment could mean for menstruation tracking. In order to begin exploring the way menstruation and the period is represented in current apps and the way that future apps could design for empowerment, we engage in a comparative design investigation using what we call critical app-walkthrough methodology where an app's design is explored comprehensibly at one point in time and apps interacted with over a longer time period through researcher use-diares. Our results center around three ways in which these apps represent the cycle to users through design. We analyse; (1) interface metaphors used to represent the temporality of bleeding, (2) datafication of menstruation through input and output for intimate data tracking, and (3) the ways fertility predictions convey certainty over uncertainty. In a second step, we then explore what empowerment could mean for period trackers and how design could support empowering experiences. Finally, we present four design sensitivities meant to inspire designers to design for other types of period tracking experiences that might better empower bleeders. These are: support lived temporalities, embrace uncertainty, empower the self, and design less.

Body maps are a popular tool in body-centric design, facilitating a sensitization and expression of felt sensations and emotions. Yet, they also bring forth assumptions about the body and our somatic experience. Based on an open and exploratory design ideation inquiry, we have started to explore how body maps could be advanced so as to cater to a plurality of bodies and aspects that shape somatic experiences. We present an annotated portfolio featuring six design themes (temporality, sociality, representativeness, granularity, context, focus). These themes help us examine implicit assumptions of current body maps, and offer possible alternatives for what future body maps could become. We contribute our themes, inspirational design ideas and practical design techniques to help craft novel body maps. Our contributions can serve as inspiration to others, towards advancing body maps as a research tool for body-centric interaction design.