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Conditioned to be Dismissed
A multisensory installation exploring how women experience uncertainty and dismissal in PCOS care.
ROLE
Experience Design
UX Design & Engineering
Research
TOOLS USED
Figma, ESP32, VSCode, Lens Studio (Snap AR), Fusion 360
DURATION
4 months
CONTRIBUTION
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Led research and conducted qualitative interviews with women and clinicians
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Synthesized insights into key themes around dismissal and uncertainty
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Designed and prototyped interactive installation concepts
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Developed AR mirror experience and physical interaction flows
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Shaped overall narrative and experience journey across all four stations
THESIS AWARD
Honorable Mention,
Citizenship Award 2025
TEAMMATE
Lauryn Wright
BACKGROUND
What happens when women’s pain is treated as uncertainty?
PCOS is one of the most common hormonal conditions affecting women, yet many people spend years trying to understand symptoms that continue disrupting their lives without clear answers or support.
For many women, navigating care becomes an ongoing cycle of waiting, questioning, explaining, and trying again. Symptoms are often difficult to measure consistently, and experiences can feel invisible to the people around them. Over time, uncertainty becomes something carried daily rather than temporarily experienced.
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Conditioned to be Dismissed explores what it feels like to move through healthcare while constantly negotiating whether your experiences are serious enough to be believed.
What is PCOS?
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common condition where genetic, hormonal, and metabolic factors affect how the ovaries work.
It is one of the most common reproductive conditions, affecting 1 in 10 women worldwide.
​Symptoms include...
RESEARCH
The more we listened, the less this felt like a medical problem alone.
To better understand women’s experiences navigating hormonal conditions and care systems, we interviewed
Across conversations, four themes consistently surfaced.
1. Emotional Burden
Women described feeling exhausted from constantly explaining symptoms that felt dismissed.
2. Systemic Barriers
Conflicting opinions and short appointments often left women without clarity.
3. Epistemic Injustice
Many women felt their symptoms were questioned or minimized.
4. Empathy Gap
Dismissal extended beyond healthcare into everyday relationships.
“Do I have to die to have care?”
“You’re not sick, you are just overreacting?”
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“Every doctor said something different.”
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“They told me to lose weight even though my problems started when I gained it.”
“Were they really listening to me? I’m not sure.”
“Do you really think you have something so rare that a clinician can’t figure it out?”
REFRAMING THE PROJECT
We stopped trying to explain dismissal and started thinking about how people could feel it.
Our initial direction focused on supporting women navigating diagnostic uncertainty and ongoing care.
But as the research evolved, we realized the challenge wasn’t only diagnostic.
It was experiential and relational.
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This shifted the project from designing around support systems toward amplifying women’s experiences of uncertainty and dismissal within healthcare itself.
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INITIAL HMW:
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How might we better support women navigating diagnostic uncertainty and ongoing care?
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REFINED HMW:
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How might design amplify women’s experiences of uncertainty and dismissal within healthcare?
DESIGNING FOR EMPATHY
The goal became creating emotional understanding rather than clinical explanation.
As the project evolved, we became interested in immersive experiences that create reflection through physical interaction, emotional pacing, and participation.
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‘Rolls Down Like Water’ simulation at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights
Empathy Museum: Example Project displayed in the UK
“A mile in my shoes”
These projects helped shape our thinking around embodied empathy and emotional presence.
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These references pushed us toward designing an installation that visitors could physically move through rather than simply observe.
OUTCOME
Translating uncertainty into embodied experience.
Conditioned to be Dismissed is a multisensory installation made up of four connected stations exploring different emotional realities of navigating PCOS care.
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As visitors move through the space, they encounter experiences shaped directly by stories shared throughout our research.
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Each station invites participants to sit with a different part of what it can feel like to navigate PCOS care over time.
STATION 1
Weighted Vest
Participants wear a weighted vest while sitting, standing, and moving through the space.
The vest translates fatigue, heaviness, and bodily discomfort into something immediate and physical, reflecting how invisible symptoms can shape everyday movement and energy levels.
STATION 2
AR Mirror Vanity
The second station places participants in front of two AR mirrors that simulate hormonally driven acne and facial hair. Some experience them constantly, while others occasionally. These reflections may not reflect any one person’s reality, but it reflects the unpredictability of hormonally driven symptoms.
This asks participants to sit with what it feels like to look in the mirror and not know when or how your body might change.
Participants also encounter a QR code that connects them to additional resources and information about PCOS.
STATION 3
Clinic Room
The third station recreates a clinical encounter. Seated in a patient chair, participants listen to audio dialogues drawn directly from interview transcripts, including verbatim quotes. Participants insert physical symptom cards into a reader, echoing the transactional rhythm of medical appointments. When the final card is
inserted, the appointment ends abruptly, reflecting the time limits and interruptions described by both patients and clinicians.
DEMONSTRATION VIDEO
Close up of the symptom cards designed in Figma and a custom 3D printed card reader prototyped using Fusion 360 and ESP32 sensors
STATION 4
Privilege Walk
The final station presents a video documenting a privilege walk exercise facilitated with nine women living with PCOS, endometriosis, and other ambiguous conditions. Participants began on the same line and stepped forward or backward in response to questions about race, money, culture, body image, and support
systems.
Some questions we asked during the exercise
FULL VIDEO ON YOUTUBE
Although everyone began standing together, the final spacing revealed how unevenly care and support are experienced across different identities and circumstances.
Exhibition & Reflection
Embodied experiences created conversations that explanation alone could not.
The installation was publicly exhibited during the Berkeley MDes Thesis Showcase. Visitors moved through each station before leaving reflections through surveys, conversations, and a collaborative reflection wall. Many participants shared that the installation mirrored experiences they had personally gone through but had never previously seen represented physically.
This project changed how I think about design and care.
​Rather than creating a solution to PCOS, Conditioned to be Dismissed explores how design can create space for emotional recognition, uncertainty, and reflection in ways traditional systems often fail to do.
As the project evolved, I realized that embodied experiences can create openings that conversation alone cannot.
APPENDIX
