SHADE
ROLE: Research, Visuals, Interaction
DURATION: Feb - April 2018
Concept
Shade is a beauty and skin care app designed to help people understand their skin so that they can find the best products to suit their specific needs. Users are given a breakdown of their skin and are provided with a tailored list of products that address their needs and why. Shade also fosters community discussion which allows all users to discuss the products that they have tried with other users who might share similar issues.
Challenges
Provide users with a clean overview of their skin needs.
Allow users to find and discover tailored products quickly.
Allow users to easily see what other users are saying about products.
Personas
Wilemina (Primary)
Age: 24
Occupation: Flight Attendant
Wilemina is a flight attendant. She used to wear heavy makeup when she first became a flight attendant, but it was too much of a hassle to bring it all with her due to the constant and frequent traveling. She still loves makeup and enjoys wearing it, but wants something lighter and less time consuming to apply. She also suffers from hyper-pigmentation so she still would like something that would cover up the unevenness.
Luca (Secondary)
Age: 20
Occupation: College Student
Luca is currently attending school to become a filmmaker, and has problems with acne. He spends most of his time filming and writing, but he also wants to take better care of his skin by having a skin care routine so his skin can improve. He wants something that will remedy his oily skin, to help clear the acne, but not leave him with dry skin.
Reese (Tertiary)
Age: 26
Occupation: Athlete
Reese is a professional volleyball player and plays frequently. She has issues with dry skin and wants a hydrating moisturizer, and also needs makeup that has long staying power that can withstand hours of playing volleyball.
Competition
The beauty industry is vast and has several types of users. I have surveyed and listed what I felt were the top contenders in order to assess which some applications excel in and also lack.
Feature Breakdown
The features of Shade are broken into three parts: The user receives a an overview of their problem areas, can then view recommended products, and and has the option to speak with others users about similar issues.
Information Architecture
User Flow
Preliminary Sketches
Prototype
User Testing
The user testing sessions were extremely valuable and provided critical feedback that I could implement in my next iteration.
Interview
I had 4 participants run through the prototype so that I could receive more qualitative responses that would further inform me on how I might improve the app.
3. Survey
After going through the task list, I had the participants complete a survey about their experience using the prototype.
2. Tasklist
Based on the aforementioned challenges, I had users complete these 3 tasks:
1. Access their Skin Profile.
2. Purchase a recommended product.
3. Start a new discussion in Community.
4. Results
1. Some icons are confusing/unclear.
2. Users understood the general purpose of the app.
3. Labels should be on product page
4. Felt that they were able to complete the task sheet.
Challenge 1
Provide users with a clean overview
of their skin needs.
Challenge 2
Allow users to find and discover
tailored products quickly.
Challenge 3
Allow users to easily see what other
users are saying about products.
The colors used for Shade were selected to create a sense of calmness and clarity. The logo was made to represent the vast amounts of skin tones, skin types and skin issues that Shade attempts to bring more understanding and awareness to.
Takeaways
This was part of a semi self-assigned project in order to improve my skills in terms of UI Design, using different prototyping tools, research and user testing. I enjoyed going through this process and I plan on doing more of these kinds of projects so that I am more in-tuned with the UI/UX process.