The United States has a significant problem with unplanned pregnancy, especially among young people who delay marriage and live their 20s single. Six in ten pregnancies to women aged 20 to 24 are unexpected, and half of all pregnancies in the United States are unplanned. Moreover, the US rate of teen pregnancy is five times higher than Continental Europe. The United States also faces a tension between abstinence-only and contraception-inclusive education, while prescription birth control can be both difficult to obtain and expensive.

At forefront of this discussion is The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, a nonprofit NGO with the goal of reducing teen pregnancy by one-third before 2015. The National Campaign's non-ideological stance and outsider support from both liberals and conservatives make the organization a rarity in the space of pregnancy prevention. Recently, The National Campaign expanded its mission to include unmarried young adults in addition to teenagers. With this in mind, the organization approached IDEO to explore opportunity areas for preventing pregnancy within this newly targeted demographic.

Given the complex and potentially overwhelming subject matter, the team extensively interviewed people in the target demographic, hosted roundtable discussions with both Europeans and Americans, conducted interviews with experts (such as doctors and counselors), as well as individuals from organizations with varying opinions about birth control.

With research in hand, IDEO developed several concepts that allowed members of The National Campaign to see sex and pregnancy through the eyes of the young women they're working to reach. The team created three scenarios to illustrate the work and to show its systemic potential across varied demographics and lifestyles. The scenarios included a young couple who had recently visited Planned Parenthood for an abortion; an on-again, off-again birth-control user; and a Latina woman who recently graduated from high school and still lived with her family. Each scenario described the woman's life and displayed artifacts that told her story, from the contents of a purse to personal knick-knacks.

The research and prototyping effort led the team to design a comprehensive system that gives women a birth control support network for avoiding unwanted pregnancies. The program focuses on five key areas: awareness, motivational drivers, digital offerings, services, and loyalty. Guerrilla marketing on bathroom mirrors and shopping carts combine with doctor-office handouts and care packages to create awareness and encourage women to rely on the network. A website acts as a one-stop educational resource with entertaining surveys, first-person stories, and information about birth control. Women who join the network can receive text-message reminders to maintain their contraception, as well as notices about upcoming doctor appointments. Ultimately, the network acts as a vehicle for behavior change that's flexible, with room to grow into a much larger movement.