Male Contraception Personas

A wall covered with colorful sticky notes and paper scraps, each containing handwritten messages, reminders, or doodles in various colors, overlapping and pinned in a dense, chaotic arrangement.

The needs and interests of people impacted by male contraceptive methods are diverse, and they evolve over time. “Personas” help understand and design for those interests and needs.

Personas are essential tools in user-centered design and marketing, representing fictional user types to define needs and behaviors. These insights are vital during ideation, guiding product attributes, and reducing design ambiguity. In male contraception, where options are limited, personas hold immense potential. They allow us to align new methods with diverse user preferences, life stages, and reproductive goals, leading to more inclusive and responsive product development.

Male Contraception & Personas

Male Contraception "Users"

Male contraception also presents an interesting opportunity for persona generation and use given its universal applicability and value: everyone benefits from new contraceptive methods. It is also a unique use case for personas given the expanded understanding of genders in our increasingly non-binary world. Egg and Sperm producers can utilize new male methods to better manage their family planning needs. As we work towards creating a world with reproductive autonomy for all, it is critically important that the design of new contraceptive methods take into consideration as many users, beneficiaries, and intermediaries as possible.

Two young men sit on a concrete ledge at a skatepark, each holding a skateboard. One wears a red long-sleeve shirt and shorts, while the other wears glasses and a gray hoodie. Trees and ramps are visible in the background.

USERS

This group is defined as the individuals that will take or utilize the next generation of contraceptives designed for men.

Three young women sit and relax together on a skate ramp, smiling and talking, dressed in casual streetwear with beanies and sneakers. A white building is visible in the background.

BENEFICIARIES

This group includes individuals who will benefit from the next generation of male contraceptives without having to take or use these products themselves.

Six people sit around a table in an office setting, smiling and interacting. Two people in the center are shaking hands. Papers, laptops, coffee mugs, and sticky notes are visible on the table and bulletin board.

INTERMEDIARIES

This group is composed of individuals that will neither take, nor directly benefit from the next generation of male contraceptives, but still have a vested interest in ensuring their development.

Male Birth Control Persona Stakeholder Groups

Men's Reproductive Journey

Much like women’s experiences with contraception, MCI anticipates that men’s preferences and needs regarding contraceptive options will evolve throughout their lives. These preferences are shaped by lived experiences: for instance, a 55-year-old man who has completed his family may have vastly different contraceptive needs than an 18-year-old who is just beginning to think about their reproductive journey.

To address these varying needs, we’ve mapped out the different stages of a man’s reproductive life, allowing us to better define the potential personas of future male contraceptive users. This approach also considers the potential beneficiaries and intermediaries who may influence decisions at each stage. Through this lens, we aim to capture the evolving needs of male contraceptive users, ensuring that new solutions are relevant and adaptable to these distinct life phases.

A young person wearing headphones and a yellow jacket stands outside holding a tablet, looking to the side. Trees and blurred people are in the background, suggesting a park or city street.

LEARNING

The initial stage, this is when a young man begins thinking about sex and establishes the foundation of their understanding of sexuality and relationship dynamics.

A man with dark hair and a beard sits on a wooden bench, holding a white cup and saucer. He wears a black jacket, gray shirt, dark jeans, and tan boots. A green plant is beside him against a wooden fence background.

EXPLORING

The next stage involves a man getting to know their sexuality and experimenting with sex irrespective of relationship status and without a focus on conceiving a child.

A man in a dark suit and tie stands and smiles while leaning against a wooden-paneled wall, with one hand in his pocket.

DECIDING

The third phase finds a man at the juncture in life where he is considering life events like getting married and having children, or not.

A middle-aged man with short gray hair and a beard, wearing a white shirt and patterned tie, sits at a desk in an office with large windows in the background. A plant is blurred in the foreground.

CONCLUDING

The final stage, this is when a man has ultimately completed their reproductive journey, whether that includes fathering children or not.

Male Birth Control Persona Life Stages

Meet the Personas

In an effort to capture the evolving ecosystem of male contraception users, beneficiaries, and intermediaries, we grouped them by life stage:

A circular chart titled Next Generation Contraception segments different personas by four quadrants: Learning, Exploring, Deciding, and Concluding. Each section lists various user types such as teachers, doctors, and app users.

Click on the image or the button for each of the phases in order to avail the profiles for the personas that represent them:

Using the Personas

Personas are fictional representations that help designers and developers deeply understand user needs, behaviors, and goals. These avatars foster empathy for diverse individuals impacted by a product. To make them meaningful, personas must be grounded in real-world characteristics and insights. We’ve created a resource page with various games, activities, and workshop agendas to help you integrate personas into your ideation process. We encourage you to try these tools and share your feedback or outputs with us to help foster innovation.

PERSONA ACTIVITIES

(Please note: there are many different ways that one can utilize personas in ideation activities, and we encourage everyone to explore as many different approaches to using them as possible. Organizations like Quicksand, Interaction Design Foundation, Open Design Kit, IDEO, Development Impact & You, Session Lab, and others are great resources for inspiration on how to utilize design thinking and personas, so please be sure to seek out additional information to help guide your work.)

* – Disclaimer: The development of these personas was conducted as a design exercise. The foundation of the exercise is the qualitative understanding of the male contraception ecosystem that MCI has developed through our work. We have engaged with stakeholders that we feel are a holistic representation of this ecosystem: researchers, funders, regulatory agencies, government officials, product developers, marketers, students, parents, advocates, potential users, and the general public in general. The following is intended to be provocative. Our hope is that this will catalyze conversations that help elucidate the male contraception field, and that these discussions afford us all the opportunity to understand and imagine who will use, benefit from, and advocate for male contraceptive methods.