Skinsight
A skincare routine shopping experience built around products on your bathroom shelf
ROLES
UX Researcher
UX/UI Designer
TIMEFRAME
80 hours
TOOLS USED
Figma
Adobe Illustrator
PROJECT TYPE
End-to-End Mobile
Independent Project
Buy, try, toss, repeat (a seemingly endless cycle)
Skin-conscious users often invest time and money on products that are not effective for their skin type, leading to unused or partially used products that are eventually discarded.
This not only frustrates users, but also contributes to product waste and environmental harm. There is a need for more personalized, effective skincare solutions that can help streamline skincare research and reduce the amount of wasted skincare products.
THE PROBLEM:
THE SOLUTION:
A routine-based shopping experience, built around products from the user’s bathroom shelf
Skinsight is a skincare e-commerce app for skin-conscious users that provides a personalized routine-based storefront to maximize routine efficiency, reduce product waste, and help effectively target specific skin goals.
A personable, seamless onboarding skin questionnaire
A simple, familiar skin questionnaire that addresses questions about skin goals, skin sensitivity, and shopping preferences
Skincare is already complicated; I made it a priority to create a clear, easy onboarding experience without compromising on core skin questions
AI Scanning to identify and log personal skincare products
AI-assisted identification of products for easy routine logging
Manual entry for users to search products from database
This portion of the onboarding process not only allows for routine management, but also checks for any harmful ingredients in existing products, as checked by EWG ratings.
A personalized, routine-based storefront
Users can shop personalized recommendations based on their existing products and routines
Use what you have, get recommendations to target goals more effectively
Completely customizable routine templates are provided for managing and tracking routines
Upon expanding each section in their routine, users can view specific information regarding their existing product, such as compatibility with skin type
Users will receive curated product selections chosen based on their effectiveness for addressing specific skin goals, such as targeting acne and clogged pores
EMPATHIZE
MARKET RESEARCH
What is “clean” beauty, anyway?
Skincare is overwhelming, partially because there is lack of transparency from brands. I began by researching persistent issues that the skincare and beauty industry face today, such as information gatekeeping and other buzzwords in the beauty industry that aren’t clear for users, such as clean beauty. Skincare products are not regulated by the FDA; these mysterious products pose potential damage to the skin without anyone knowing if ingredients are safe or not.
Users are becoming increasingly intentional about the skincare products they are adding to their routines, which raises some questions about brands and their marketing claims. Skincare products are an investment in both time and money. Therefore, transparency about ingredients, pricing, and packaging materials is expected from skincare brands in 2023.
A 2021 survey found that trust is the new brand equity
44%
of consumers are purpose-driven, choosing brands and products based on how well they align with their values.
43%
of users say they will stay loyal to a brand they fully trust due to brand transparency
61%
of users say they will advocate for a brand by recommending it to others and talking about it on social media
“What is this sunscreen’s packaging made of?
“Why does this serum cost $50?”
“Where do the ingredients for my moisturizer come from?”
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
AI Facial Scanning in other apps has been met with pushback
I conducted a competitive analysis to understand what current skincare apps offer for users. Surprisingly, many of these competitors have an enticing AI Facial Scanning feature that detects fine lines, acne, eczema, and more. With the rise of AI, the idea sounded promising, but after reading app reviews, I was still a bit skeptical that it would be the ideal solution to understanding one’s skin needs. Many of these apps are met with pushback and distrust, due to issues with the, sometimes, insensitive verbiage built into the rating systems and the conflict of interest between companies that adopt this technology (designed to point out flaws) while selling their products to users. Although I can’t fix the unregulated state of the skincare industry, I saw an opportunity to bridge some gaps in obtaining a personalized routine with product transparency.
Trove Skin
Good Face
Dermie AI
USER INTERVIEWS
Let’s hear what users are saying
After conducting some secondary research on the state of the skincare industry, I dove right into user interviews to better understand individual skincare needs, motivations or barriers to skincare consistency, and factors that influence the decision to purchase products.
Repeated questions revealed during interviews illustrate the complexities of skincare
“How will my existing products react with new ones?
“What ingredient combinations do not mix?”
-- Morgan B., Interview Participant
“What ingredients can be used in the same routine?
Here are some key research insights, gathered from my affinity map:
FINDING 1:
Research and prioritization of ingredients
All participants partake in some form of research before making a skincare product purchase. They prioritize ingredients when deciding which products to buy, but it is difficult to remember what the purpose of each ingredient is.
FINDING 2:
Users are conscientious about sustainability and care about reducing product waste
Many skincare users are conscientious about reducing product waste and attempt to utilize their existing products, but often find that ineffective products accumulate and go unused on their bathroom shelf.
FINDING 3:
Concerns about product compatibility
Concerns about product compatibility contribute to confusion and inconsistency in a skincare routine, as people may be unsure about which products are safe to use together and in what order.
FINDING 3:
The value of simplicity in skincare
People value a simple skincare routine due to 2 factors: convenience, and also to minimize risk of adverse skin reactions, such as redness.
DEFINE & IDEATE
USER PERSONA
Meet Claire, the Skincare Experimentalist
Claire is a busy professional who is struggling to find motivation to care for her skin. She has trouble understanding if her current routine and its ingrredients are right for her skin. She is usually on social media and has tried many products recommended by TikTok, only to find that she’s not seeing progress.
Claire
Speech-Language Pathologist
Chicago, IL
Masters
FEMALE
27
LOCATION
EDUCATION
GENDER
AGE
Skin Concerns
Acne-prone
Sensitive
Dry
“There are some days where I do just fall asleep with my makeup on. There are some days where I don’t feel like putting on sunscreen. I would like a personalized routine with more structure”
Bio
Claire is a busy Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) who recently moved to Chicago. With having to commute in varying weather conditions, Claire is overwhelmed and is struggling to find motivation to care for her skin. Claire is recently trying out a skin-cycling routine but is unsure if she can maintain consistency, and still has so many questions and concerns over what products (such as retinol and tretinoin) are right for her.
Goals
Improve understanding of product ingredients
Simplification of routine, minimizing time spent
Improve consistency for healthy skin maintenance
Discover smaller brands, especially POC-owned
Motivations
Clear, healthy skin
Skin care as self-care (improving mental health
Incentives for skin health maintenance
Pain Points
Too many products through trial and error, and too much time spent on researching product effectiveness
It can be difficult to tell if hype surrounding a new product or trend is justified
Not aware of which ingredients/products are good/unhealthy for her skin
Doesn’t always see visible results from long-term use of products
Needs
A simplified breakdown of ingredients
A custom skincare routine that doesn’t feel like a chore
Recommendations for products from real people (not sponsored influencers) with similar skin concerns
A way to track her progress and know if products are working (visible progress)
Influences
Tik Tok Influencers
Cosmetic Chemists
Celebrity Dermatologists
Estheticians
Product Interests
Sephora
Curology
Innisfree
Ulta
Frequently used apps
USER JOURNEY MAPPING
What are Claire’s shopping habits?
Although Claire likes to do her research in the form of reading ingredients and product reviews before making a purchase, she is still somewhat of an impulsive shopper and is easily influenced by the aesthetics of a brand. Claire chases that feeling of instant gratification. She is willing to try new products and is open to experimenting with different skincare brands and ingredients.
Claire
27
Chicago, IL
Experimentalist
Scenario
Goals
Claire is scrolling through Tik Tok and sees a new skincare product, sponsored from an influencer with seemingly perfect skin. Excited, Claire is eager to see it in person at her nearest Sephora, so she plans a spontaneous trip to the mall. She has looked at one review of the product, and is unsure if the product will work well for her skin type. Because Claire wants to improve her skincare routine, she will need to purchase products that are effective, with ingredients that don’t irritate her acne-prone skin.
Design an app with reviews from trusted sources that have tried a product for a specific period of time
Design a social-commerce style app - users can buy directly online
Clearly understand product ingredients and personal skin needs before purchasing product
Improve consistency of skincare routine
Build an effective routine from personalized recommendations
While scrolling through Tik Tok on her phone, Claire sees a sponsored ad for a new chemical exfoliant
Intrigued, Claire decides to make a spontaneous trip to Sephora to check it out
Claire feels overwhelmed and distracted at the store; it’s crowded and difficult to find the product
Claire finds the product and loves the packaging!
Feeling hesitant, Claire pulls out her phone and starts looking at more reviews
After 30 minutes of researching on her phone, Claire gets tired of reading mixed reviews
Claire decides to let her impulsive thoughts win, and buys the product!
After a month of use, Claire feels like she is getting more breakouts than usual and wants to stop using the product.
I really want to try this new product to improve my skincare routine
I like shopping in store since I can see the product, smell it, and test how it feels on the skin
Wait, what’s the difference between BHAs and AHAs? Can I use AHA with my Vitamin C?
I feel like I wasted so much money on this product, I’m not seeing the results I wanted
Digestible breakdown of product ingredients
Scanning of product barcode while in store to identify ingredients that work well/do not work well for skyn type
Show product reviews from real customers that have tried the product long-term, with progress pictures
Onboarding through app to provide personalized recommendations from trustworthy sources (i.e. cosmetic chemists)
Routine builder/tracker to know exactly where a product falls (i.e. order of routine)
Build an active skincare community and provide incentives for daily logging
How might we streamline skincare research for skin-conscious users in order to help them make an informed purchase?
How might we help skin-conscious users reap the benefits of products in order for them to see progress?
BRAINSTORMING IDEAS
From Research Insights
Design Decisions
With my research synthesized, I explored additional ideas to help skin-conscious users feel more confident that skincare products will work for their skin goals.
I completed two rounds of collaborative ideation sessions using timed constraints to quickly draft options on how the app might help users with skincare shopping habits and skincare routine management post-purchase.
Although AI facial scanning was considered in the ideation process, I chose to focus on an alternate solution for my MVP due to the quick mistrust from research participants. I hope to explore AI in the future, as the improved efficacy will likely influence skincare product purchases.
My earlier research findings sparked the following design insights and decisions.
FINDING 1:
Research and prioritization of ingredients
Design Insights
Incorporate digestible ingredient breakdowns for easy scanning
Ingredient data is visualized in pie chart format for easy scanning of “best” vs. “worst” ingredients on each product page
Each rating is based on ingredient research from the EWG
Key ingredients are listed first
Each ingredient is listed in an accordion format for users to expand and read more about ingredient purposes before making a purchase.
FINDING 2:
Users are conscientious about sustainability and reducing product waste
Design Insights
Incorporate routine management
To promote responsible product usage, users can log routines, and utilize routine templates for quick management.
Users will be able to track their product usage and receive reminders of when to use certain products effectively.
FINDING 3:
Concerns about product compatibility
Design Insights
Incorporate a personalized shopping experience based on the user’s routine(s)
The feature will recommend products that compliment a user’s current products and fill in any gaps in their routine after an onboarding process involving a quick skin quiz + AI-assisted logging of a user’s existing products.
Provide extra context on product recommendations
Instead of simply listing out product recommendations after a skin quiz without further explanation, users can view tips related to their current product they are using, and receive additional information about why products are recommended.
Design Insights
Ensure that adding a new product to a routine is a simple process
Encourage routine management by providin ways to quickly update routines - by keeping their routine simple and making changes gradually, users are more likely to identify products that may cause skin sensitivity or reactions
Finding 4:
People prioritize a simple skincare routine
BUSINESS AND USER GOALS
Are there potential business tradeoffs with a routine-based shopping experience?
As all my interview participants stated, skincare product returns are quite common.
Given the selected idea, I had to understand potential business tradeoffs that a personalized, routine-based shopping experience might offer.
I created a Venn diagram to further explore the app idea, and gained confidence that Skinsight could differentiate itself from competitors and build brand loyalty through its focus on sustainability and reducing product waste.
Increase engagement and retention of existing users
Increase # of sign-ups
Build strategic partnerships with clean brands, cosmetic chemists, dermatologists, and other reputable influencers
Sponsorships and partnerships from emerging indie/BIPOC owned brands
Low rate of product returns (due to product actually working for the user’s skin goals and needs)
Reduce industry waste, reduce expired products and unsold inventory
Optimize supply chain
Product recommendations for gaps
in current routine
Willing to invest money into transparent, sustainable products
Keep using existing products that are half full if they work for the user (less waste)
Product variety with recommendations
Maintain consistency with product usage and routines
Convenient and easy to use interface
Purchase products that work for their specific skin needs
Save time on skincare research
Shared Goals
Brand loyalty/trust
Positive online skincare shopping experience
User Goals
Business Goals
I utilized an Impact vs. Effort Matrix to prioritize features and ensure that the product stayed within scope. This approach helped me to focus on developing core features that would provide the most significant impact on the user experience while minimizing unnecessary effort and complexity. I had many feature ideas initially, and creating this matrix helped ensure a focused MVP with a routine-based shopping experience.
Prioritizing features for a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
SITE (APP) MAP
Structuring the User Experience
Before the design stage, I explored how the content would be hierarchically organized. I modeled the app map based on other competitor apps in this space.
TASK FLOWS:
Determining key task flows for app success
I revisited Claire’s persona to review goals, motivations, and pain points. I created 4 task flows that every user needed to complete in order to deem the app successful.
First, users needed to be able to complete an onboarding process for personalized skincare recommendations. This flow should be familiar for users, as all 5 of my interview participants have taken skin quizzes in the past.
Second, users need to be able to log their existing products from their own bathroom shelf. This is crucial in order for users to maintain a personalized storefront and shop based on specific routines.
Next, users need to be able to shop their personalized storefront. It is crucial for users to understand how the storefront works, and why certain products are recommended that compliment the user’s current routine and target skin goals in order to make an informed purchase.
DESIGN
LOW-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
Early concept sketches
With the task flows side by side, I began sketching early concepts that transitioned into wireflows.
Main Task Flow: Shop using the routine-based storefront
TESTING AND ITERATIONS
Testing the integrity of the app at the mid-fidelity stage
I conducted moderated usability testing (with a mid-fidelity prototype) via Zoom with five users with current skincare routines. I evaluated each user’s ability to complete the tasks and compiled the findings into an affinity map to analyze observations (verbal and nonverbal), verbatim quotes, slips, mistakes, and first impressions.
At-a-Glance Results
100%
Completion rate
0%
Bounce rate
4.2
Average difficulty rating
(5 = very easy, 1 = very difficult)
Testing validated a smooth, “humanized” onboarding process. It also validated the app’s overall concept, focusing on personal routine curation.
All 5 users were highly optimistic about the app, noting great first impressions of the onboarding process through “humanized" questions to increase user comfortability and trust.
Users were able to articulate the purpose of each task and understand how the app works to generate personalized recommendations based on user’s current routines
“I think it’s a really great idea for an app, and I haven’t even seen the rest of it yet.”
Users reacted positively to the app concept, noting that the routine-based storefront consolidated skincare product information effectively
“I would definitely use it. I lile how it’s organized by each step, and I like that it has information about the product that I’m using. I usually buy things without knowing what it does, but I’m always curious to learn more about my products.”
Prioritizing Iterations
After discovering common themes, I placed them into a prioritization matrix to prioritize the changes. The high-priority, high-feasibility findings are therefore the most “severe.”
I created a table to further visualize my findings and comment on why findings are ranked as high, moderate, and low severity. I made sure to think about business impact, user impact, and ease of fix in addition to frequency. I chose to focus on findings labeled as high priority.
Here are the high priority key findings and the iterations they inspired:
Users expressed confusion about the routine-based storefront feature on the “Shop” page.
Finding #1:
Before
Toners
9:41
All
Cleansers
Moisturizers
Treatments
Sunscreen
Shop
Your Routine-Based Storefront
This feature helps you to find products that fit into your existing routine and match your skin type and goals!
Try it out
Your curated picks
View all
Home
Shop
Routines
Community
Account
Krave Beauty
Matcha Hemp Hydrating Cleanser
$16
Krave Beauty
Matcha Hemp Hydrating Cleanser
$16
Krave Beauty
Matcha Hemp Hydrating Cleanser
$16
Targetting acne + clogged pores
1
Shop
1
Title
Users expressed confusion about the routine-based storefront feature on the “Shop” page. This section almost went unnoticed, as some users thought it was an advertisement.
2
Title
Curated picks are a result of the onboarding process.
2
After
Toners
9:41
Your Storefront
Shop All
Shop
Your Routine-Based Storefront
We’ve recommended products that will complement your current products and work harder at targeting your skin goals. Choose your routine to get started!
Try it out
Your curated picks
View all
Krave Beauty
Matcha Hemp Hydrating Cleanser
$16
Krave Beauty
Matcha Hemp Hydrating Cleanser
$16
Krave Beauty
Matcha Hemp Hydrating Cleanser
$16
Targetting acne + clogged pores
Home
Shop
Routines
Community
Account
Shop (Revised)
1
Title
Renamed the tabs on the shop page so that users can distinguish between the personal storefront and the general shop page.
2
Title
Increased whitespace and improved copy to provide users with more context on the personal routine-based storefront.
2
1
Users expected to navigate to “Edit routine” in order to add a product to their routine, largely missing the “Add to Routine” CTA underneath recently purchased products.
Finding #2:
Before
After
Edit Routine (original)
1
Title
Unclear header
2
Title
There are 4 nights as part of the skin cycling routine template.
Original screen lists out all products for all nights, which contributed to user confusion.
3
Title
Missing routine reminders, which was expected of users when editing routine
Edit Routine (revised)
1
Title
Clear "Edit Routine" header
2
Title
To reduce cognitive load, added tabs for each night, with the option to view all products in routine.
3
Title
Added routine reminders as per user expectations
4
Title
Fixed bottom banner for app suggestion to add a product to routine. This banner can be dismissed.
1
2
3
1
2
3
VISUAL DESIGN AND BRANDING
The logo and choice of blue (and its variants) for the primary color are used to symbolize Skinsight’s brand values: clean, comforting, transparent, sustainable, and friendly. The “goopy” letter S is a visual choice to represent a skincare product’s (moisurizer) texture.
Expressing a calming, clean visual identity
BRANDING
A UI Component Library to tie it all together
When creating the mid-fidelity wireframes in Figma, I started to create reusable components. This came in handy when it came to organizing a comprehensive UI library and increased the efficiency of my design process.. I applied my style tile and color palette to these components to bring the app to life. View full UI library here.
REFLECTIONS
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The importance of setting a feasible scope and MVP
In the ideation phase, I had a plethora of ideas, all aiming to bridge as many gaps in the skincare market as possible. This was, of course, too ambitious for an app MVP. Therefore, I relied heavily on discussing my ideas with other designers and utilizing prioritization methods to create a solid feature roadmap for the MVP.
Always test the target user
I did some preliminary usability tests with some family and friends in order to practice my script. These users expressed confusion about skincare routine terminology in general. This general confusion allowed me to refine the test script and ask a question about specific terminology in the copy, such as asking users what they thought “routine compatibility” meant. Testing with the target user also helped ensure that the product is designed with their needs, goals, and behaviors in mind. This can lead to a more intuitive and user-friendly experience, which can increase user satisfaction and retention in the future. After conducting the usability tests with my target users, the results validated many of my design decisions.
Be cautious of UX writing
Although my target users are skin-conscious individuals who want to enhance their routine, users who are less experienced in skincare might have trouble understanding terminology. I aim to iterate the copy in order for skincare beginners to increase user comprehension of the app.
Next steps: If I had more time, I would...
Perform round 2 of usability testing on the high-fidelity prototype
Measure success after launch through user signups, purchases, and app reviews.
Build out the routine-tracker and design for other use cases and alternate paths from user flows
