"Concluding" is the final stage when a man has ultimately completed his reproductive journey, whether that includes fathering children or not.

This phase in life finds users and beneficiaries living out the reality of their family planning decisions. They have completed their reproductive journey in one way or another, and their focus is now shifting towards other life considerations, while intermediaries shift their focus to helping younger generations navigate their own journey.

Users

​I’m Good Ivan
I’m Good Ivan has, as long as he can remember, been certain that he does not want to have children, but is equally certain that he does not want any procedure that causes permanent infertility like a vasectomy.  Maybe it’s the surgical nature of the procedure, or the finality of “the snip,” or maybe it’s an association with his masculinity.

Motivations: He sees vasectomy as too extreme for him and would rather maintain the freedom to choose, even if he is certain he will always choose “no”, when it comes to kids.

Barriers: He is comfortable in or out of a relationship and enjoys sex, but wishes there were more contraceptive options for men; he does not like having to rely on condoms.

(persona by Yu luck from the Noun Project)

(persona by Yu luck from the Noun Project)

​Protective Patrice
Protective Patrice is a dad who still has contraceptive needs, but they are secondary to those of his children: he wants to make sure his kids have access to the resources they need to avoid an unintended pregnancy. This may be due to having a “scare” in his life, a personal connection to someone who had an unintended pregnancy, or a desire to shield his children from any of the challenges associated with them.

Motivations: As a father, he’s equipped with all the communication skills that come with parenting and is driven to help ensure his children only have children of their own if they want to, and when they want to.

Barriers: He’s an advocate for all forms of contraception, and is likely frustrated by the lack of options he has had throughout his life. That said, he’s uncertain of what else he can do to help address this.

Wrap-it-up Romit
Wrap-it-up Romit is an accomplished father in a stable relationship/marriage. He has a few children who are all starting to mature in their own ways, and he and his partner feel confident that they have met their family planning objectives. They still have a healthy sex life, but don’t want more kids. They want to focus on raising the children they do have and create a stable, happy home for them.

Motivations: Additional children may negatively impact their ability to provide the kind of life they want to give their existing children.

Barriers: Romit may not yet be at a place where a vasectomy is his preferred choice, but his partner doesn’t want to take contraception anymore, and they are discussing his potential sterilization due to a lack of other viable options.

(persona by Yu luck from the Noun Project)

Beneficiaries

(persona by Yu luck from the Noun Project)

Child-free Chastain
Child-free Chastain has led what she feels is a long, happy life full of contentment and cherished memories. She’d always thought about raising a family as a “some day”, future event, but that never really materialized and she’s content with that.

Motivations: It seems to her that there is a great deal of societal pressure on women to bear children, and she decided it wasn’t right for her. This in turn got her thinking about the contraceptive burden women face, and the need for greater male involvement in family planning.

Barriers: She personally doesn’t want to be permanently sterilized, but sees long-acting methods as a great way of ensuring long-lasting protection for both her and her partners. There just aren’t any options like this for men, though.

Mama Bear Bernice
Mama Bear Bernice loves her family. She’s a stay at home mom and is involved in most aspects of her children’s lives. It’s important to her that they grow up safe, healthy, and happy, and that they don’t have to deal with the obstacles she did growing up.

Motivations: Now that they’re getting older, Bernice’s focus is shifting towards contraception for her children of all genders. One of her children takes gender-affirming care, and she’s especially interested in making sure they are protected from pregnancy while they are on hormone therapy.

Barriers: She and her husband don’t want more kids, and she’s focused on transitioning her kids into adulthood. She’s uncertain of her children’s needs though and needs to educate herself on the development of new contraceptives.

(persona by Yu luck from the Noun Project)

(persona by Yu luck from the Noun Project)

​Not My Tubes Nancy
Not My Tubes Nancy is what people describe as “a character”. She has an opinion for everything, and you will hear every one of them often punctuated with her catch phrase “Not this Girl”. She tells it like it is, keeps people laughing, and holds court in any room she finds herself in, though she’s most comfortable and at her “Full Nancy” while hanging out with her girlfriends. She’s had a happy life, but one that came with overcoming challenges; she’s no stranger to struggles, and her self-confidence was born in overcoming them. Her kids are great, and will be even better when they finally move out of her house. She has a playful, loving relationship with her husband; the yin to her yang.

Motivations: She’s done with having kids, but is tired of the side effects of contraception. As for having surgery for tubal ligation? “Not this girl”!

Barriers: She’s not sure what her husband will do, but he better figure that out, and soon. For now, they use condoms and the rhythm method, but they want and need something more and better.

Intermediaries

Advocate Annie
Advocate Annie is driven by a passion to right wrongs wherever they occur. She’s active in many social causes, especially those around equity and equality. She’s an eternal optimist that thinks any challenge can be overcome with a whole lot of effort and a modicum of honesty.

Motivations: It enrages her that there are people being denied anything that could help improve their lives for any reason. To her, the fact of the matter is that there are people standing in the way of providing a resource that could benefit all people for no good reason.

Barriers: She thinks it’s superfluous to ask her if she would personally benefit from male contraception as that’s besides the point. The lack of free will to choose is enough for her to champion this and any cause, though she’s not entirely sure what the best course of action is.

(persona by Yu luck from the Noun Project)

(persona by Yu luck from the Noun Project)

Space-em-out Silas
Space-em-out Silas has been blessed with a happy, healthy family. He and his partner had more children than they initially planned for (having 4 kids in just 5 years!), but they made do and did their best with raising their brood. Despite this, he wishes that they had spent more time with each individual child before having the next one.

Motivations: He knows that he would have benefited from spacing out each child they had a bit more, and is committed to helping other people and couples have the resources they need to accomplish that if they so desire. To him, increasing the number of male methods of contraception is the “low-hanging fruit” in this equation.

Barriers: He appreciates that not everyone may share his opinion on spacing out children, and there’s only so much he can do as a very busy husband and father of 4.

​Stop-the-cycle Cyrus
Stop-the-cycle Cyrus considered himself to be a very lucky person. After all, he had a long, successful career and raised a wonderful family with his loving partner. He did not experience any setbacks or hurdles that could have potentially derailed his dreams and aspirations, though he did have a pregnancy scare with a partner in college.

Motivations: He knows that much, if not all, of the luck he had in avoiding a disruption to his life via an unintended pregnancy is owed to the diligence of past partners in taking contraception. This was the case for his own father, and he is committed to making sure this is not the reality for his sons.

Barriers: He’s unsure of the best way forward to get people thinking about contraception not as an “either, or” situation, but rather an “and” one. How can he convince his family and friends to champion the cause of male contraception?

(persona by Yu luck from the Noun Project)

Meet personas from other life stages:

learning

Exploring

DECIDING

Using the Personas

Personas are fictional characters created as stand-ins or avatars for the different types of individuals that may use or be impacted by a product. They allow for the development of a deeper understanding of users’ needs, experiences, behaviors, and goals by allowing you to empathize with another’s reality and point of view. As such, it is important to identify and expand different user characteristics in order to make the personas as rooted in reality as possible.

To help get you started with using the personas for ideation purposes, we have created a page dedicated to various games, activities, and workshop agendas. We encourage you to try these out, and reach out to us with any questions or suggestions. Please also be sure to share any outputs from your persona design activities with us!

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 the 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.