MY: SKINCARE
A Recommendation App?
A final project I have finished at the end of the 10 weeks UX Design course from General Assembly. Here is the gist of how it came about.
And, what is with the question mark, you ask? Scroll down to find out.
The design problem to work throughout the course.
I thought of a few but ultimately decided upon... you guessed it.
Skincare!
After asking around these are the general feelings from people who are new to skincare and are interested in starting a routine.
“Many products seems to do the same thing, difficult to decide which to buy”
“Which one do I need?”
“Skincare is complex”
The problem I suspect is there are too many choices of skincare products in the market for a new user to decide on.
A little research on 'potential' competitors and target users.
Research was focused on services that sell skincare and features provided to help users to make a decision to buy skincare products. As for the target user, a group of users aged mid-20s to early 30s and new to skincare, were interviewed with.
A list of direct and indirect competitors.
Comparing features among direct competitors.
Defining common pain points with information collected through user interviews.
The personas.
Meet Caleb and Pei Xuan, the two personas created based on the user interviews conducted. Two quotes from the interviewees aptly describes them.
* In-depth personas available in PDF
Clueless Caleb
The total beginner
in skincare
“…Dunno what Vit C is…what does it even do for your skin?”
Perplexed
Pei Xuan
The baffled
skincare rookie
“ So many choices,
only 1 face.”
A revelation in the midst of the project.
Initial solution of creating an mobile app to help these users raised a couple of questions during the prototyping stage (low fidelity).
Does this app value-add to the user's experience? Is it a suitable platform to put this solution out on?
*Detailed break down available
in PDF
The switch, from...
MY: SKINCARE
A Recommendation App?
As a skincare service
Instead of focusing solely on an app with one feature, the project expanded into a service for new skincare users instead. This allows space for reiterations, to improve and value-add any future features, to help users.
A renewed goal.
Planning of MY:SKINCARE service was underway. Prioritizing features to include in the prototype, drafting out the sitemap, planning of the user flows and putting out mid and high prototypes for usability testing.
Listing out features and which to focus on.
The revised sitemap after going through closed card sorting with the the previous focus group.
Userflow of how a persona will use the recommendation feature when he/she is not sure of what products to get.
Userflow of how a persona will sign up to get his/her skincare delivered after being recommended.
Usability test done for the mid prototype with users from the previous focus group. Test on ease of navigation, ease of using features in web application, ease of completing set task to the user.
Usability testing with the same users interviewed.
Get a recommendation of skincare products using recommendation feature, and receive the results without sign up.
Enjoy extra features (that includes online purchase and delivery service) to make their experience of skincare easier by signing up with MY:SKINCARE.
With that said, this prototype does not mean the end! Of course, there will definitely be reiterations to improve upon to ensure its usability for the users.
The working prototype
After 10 weeks, a working prototype was created, showing the features and to demonstrate the 'Happy Path', when Caleb/Pei Xuan uses MY:SKINCARE to:
(Not) The end
With that, ends my journey through the 10 week UX Design course, with thanks to my course mates and the lecturer, Alvin. But, not the end to improve on my UX design skillset!
A more detailed look at the prototype or the final presentation deck is provided below.