As a recovering skincare addict and acne-sufferer, I’ve noticed how many of my friends, families, and peers were suffering not just from the physical effects of common skin conditions like acne, eczema, sunburns, and sensitive skin, but also the mental and emotional distress that something so seemingly superficial can cause.
Although these skin conditions are usually manageable, they more often than not negatively affect the quality of life for those affected. Furthermore, trying to address problematic skin with the overwhelming amount of over-the-counter and prescription treatments and home-remedies available can lead to even more problems, both to the person’s skin and to their mental state.
Is there a way to alleviate the stress to both the user’s skin and their mental health?
Starting with white paper research, I started drawing a simple conclusion from many academic and medical journals in regards to the general and overarching topic of health and illness behavior: something as simple as keeping a diary can provide invaluable insights into a person’s health behaviors, offer unique insights into their health routines, and uncover hidden aspects of their daily lives and routines that impact their health. The Social Science & Medicine Journal found that:
". . . diaries can be used effectively over relatively long periods of time and are effective in exploring health issues. . . diary techniques can offer some unique insights into the ongoing health routines and can prove invaluable in uncovering hidden aspects of daily lives and routines that impact health histories. . ."
Keeping my learnings from above in mind, I examined several popular apps that either fit into the “health-tracking” or “skincare” space. I found that in the app space, there needed to be a solution that bridged health-tracking and skin education, and directly addressed skincare.
From my research, I knew that keeping records was important, but I also wanted to conduct interviews with a sampling of individuals who suffer from skin conditions and fail to address these problems. I interviewed 10 individuals and asked them the below questions to find trends on why they were unable to improve their skin or address their skin conditions, and then organized my data with affinity mapping.
1. Tell me about your skin. How do you feel about it?
2. Do you have a skincare routine? What’s involved in it?
3. What’s the most difficult part about your skincare routine?
4. What are your goals for your skin?
5. How does your skincare routine fit into your skin goals?
6. Do you keep track of what affects your skin’s condition? How do you keep track of this?
7. Do you go out of your way to try and “fix” your skin?
8. What do you do or what changes have you made in your daily routine to try to “fix” your skin?
9. How does your skin affect you mentally or emotionally?
Many of my interviewees were overwhelmed and exhausted by the plethora of information, solutions, advice, products, and services out there, and are increasingly frustrated and de-motivated when they don’t see any changes to their skin or it gets worse.
Based on patterns in user behavior and common traits from the user interviews, I created a persona to represent the needs and behaviors from the target user demographic, young Gen-Zers.
I prioritized a clean UI and a seamless UX; keeping the aesthetic minimalistic is meant to make Nudge seem friendly & the user's skin goals addressable, rather than feel like they’re fighting their skin AND the app.
Until I was able to arrive at the design I wanted to mockup digitally, I first went through several iterations of hand sketching the Nudge flow and screens.
Nudge is friendly, casual, and knowledgeable, and it looks after its users in an encouraging and approachable way, so I wanted the design to feel the same: relaxed & easy-breezy. I wanted to focus on making the UI as clean and the UX as seamless as possible.
Keeping the aesthetic minimalistic is meant to make Nudge seem friendly & the user's skin goals addressable, rather than feel like they're fighting their skin AND the app.
This project was the first one that I've worked on where I really got to deep dive into the iteration and reiteration part of design; this also meant I've learned more from this process than I ever could have imagined:
I. UX Design is A LOT of work. Working on a product from beginning to end as the sole designer is (shockingly) a challenging undertaking. From research to implementation, and with input and support from my peers, I had to execute this design process end-to-end. This both allowed and forced me to be resourceful and agile, and I had to depend on insights from the users themselves to guide me through the iterations.
II. Dig deeper... Even deeper. I learned the value of really paying attention to the user’s story and digging into users’ frustrations and needs and letting that guide me in the design process rather than the other way around.
III. Cool ideas won’t solve user problems. Although I REALLY liked the idea of smart glasses or a smart mirror that can detect skin problems and remedy them (a la Black Mirror), it’s honestly just not a realistic way for most users to target their skin concerns. The easiest solution is the best solution… in this case.