10059952Innovative breast shapers for diverse breast form wearers- how might we utilise our revolutionary approach to breast form design to support the transgender community to access comfortable and affordable breast form products?ClosedGrant for R&DInnovate UKBoost has a reputation for inclusive, human-centred design for health and wellbeing. We hate making design assumptions about what people need, or what they think and feel. Instead, we wish to co-design with the communities we work with, and for our first breast shapers, we have done this successfully, working to include women who've had breast cancer all the way through our product development process. We have considered for some time that our light, airy and comfortable breast forms might be of interest within the transgender community. Indeed, we have had enquiries and made some sales. However, we don't like to make assumptions. So we have designed a project to help us actively and meaningfully engage in co-design, discovery and market insight activity with the transgender community. This funding will allow Boost to engage directly with transgender breastform wearers for the first time, listening to their breast shaper needs. We will undertake product discovery activities to identify potential ways that Boost's unique shaper concepts could be tailored, adapted or reimagined to suit the needs of transgender customers. We will deliver make, test and learn cycles which will focus on the shaper products themselves and the user-experience, purchasing journey and messaging that might be used to support trans breastform wearers to access our products. Usually, breastforms for the trans community are created to represent realism and are often made from heavy silicone gel in polyurethane film. They are not-recyclable or comfortable, particularly when you might be in the early stages of exploring new body shapes and identities. They are also expensive and would have limitations for swimming and exercise. We aim to consider whether we have design and user-experience barriers for trans customers and deliver a project that overcomes these, making our products more accessible to even wider groups of people. Our patented products have shown us that we can re-imagine what a breastform can be. Now we want to work with more diverse breastform wearers across new communities to see if we can also support them with our innovative take on breastform design.