Beautygeeks listen up, I’ve rounded up the top mobile apps that will seriously transform your face. Any beauty junkie knows what it’s like scrolling endlessly through blogs and review sites. The same challenge exists when browsing in retail stores with multiple rows of facial cleansers and moisturizers. It is nearly impossible to select customized skincare products. This is how I helped J&J think about user focused experiences.
JOHNSON & JOHNSON
Johnson & Johnson
My Role
Apps are a key driver in the consumers’ desire for personalization as they can pinpoint exactly what will meet our specific needs and where to find products in a hurry. I joined the innovation team and was responsible for the strategy and user experience design of an iPhone app by producing deliverables and presenting these to the science and technology product owners.
The objective was a product recommendation engine. A computational analysis would occur after a user takes a picture of themselves on their mobile device. The messaging would result such as, “Your age in wrinkles appears to be 50. Use X,Y,Z product for A,B,C and perform the skin assessment again in two weeks.” It would then have a recommendation engine assessing different parts of the face and mapping them back to J&J products:
To reduce the appearance of crow’s feet around your eyes, please use the Roc Eye Cream."
To improve the appearance of your complexion, please use the Neutrogena Face Wash.”
To preserve your skin, please use Aveeno.”
GEEK IS CHIC
Skincare is a highly competitive and saturated market. There is a growing popularity of products that emphasize gentle skincare, function and convenience with consumer interest and customized results.
Keeping the markets at a high level allowed us to work fluidly and explore concepts that we could easily communicate. They allowed us to express these from both a functional and emotional perspective allowing for further empathy with our users.
To differentiate ourselves in a competitive market, we needed to define a desirable role for the app and how it would meet the needs of the users. We researched the top beauty apps to determine if we had a unique app with a point of differentiation.
CUSTOMER INSIGHTS
Insights from our discovery work indicated many applications provided recommendations of products, but most of the experiences felt gimmicky and not necessarily useful. We also had serious concerns about predicting consumers’ age and product recommendations. Meeting with key stakeholders helped understand their business challenges. Together we identified risks and aligned on expectations while constructing a shared vision for the app to put a focus on sun care products.
DESIGN EXECUTION
I created frameworks and wireframes to share the vision, design principles and content strategy. Visually aligning ideas, translating concepts into features that address customer behaviors and motivations.
VIRTUAL BEAUTY
User explores options and recommendations of products to apply to face cleansers, sun care, treatment of wrinkles and fine lines, skin tones and dryness while presenting a timeline.
SKIN FORECAST
Users scan their face, program detects eye color (blue, green, brown, hazel, black), hair color (natural hair color, red or blonde, dark blonde or light brown, dark brown, black) and freckles. Once the skincare calculation is completed, the user will be given a ‘Skin Diagnosis Type.’ The user will then have the option to receive information from the ‘Skin Forecast’ which includes: SPF needed (location or option to buy online, time, date, temperature, weather reports, UV index, humidity, precipitation, wind and additional sun protection suggestions (hat, sunglasses, etc.).
AUGMENTED REALITY LABEL SCAN
Users can aim phone at different skincare lines and have the option to receive information about the product to include facts, benefits, and videos.
VALIDATION
We reviewed all ideas, wireframes, product recommendation engine technologies, experience maps, story boards and user flows. It was clear that many of these apps seemed useful but, the direction to pursue would need to be science and technology driven to differentiate ourselves. In the world of beauty, prevention is the most powerful tool. We brainstormed ideas on how you could scan your body to check and see if you were covered in sun block.
We decided to set up tests to see if there was a way we could use the iPhone camera or include an attachment to the phone, to see if we could use ultraviolet light to show where people have missed applying sunscreen on their bodies. A key component was to see how the camera on the iPhone deals with spectral response (UV reflectance, whether or not the iPhone camera is sensitive in the UV part of the spectrum). The video, “How the Sun Sees You” by Thomas Leveritt shows a great example of how a user would look and how you would be able to detect missed sunblock spots by pointing the iPhone at the face or body.
RESULTS
We conducted two tests.
Test one was in a dark room with a UV light source with sunblock applied on our testers forehead. Some highlights on the forehead were visible, but they appeared to originate from the visible light. If the sensor was picking up the UV light on the forehead area, with sunblock applied, the results would be darker, not lighter.
Test two took place in a dark room with a UV light source and sunblock applied on our testers forehead. A UV pass filter was on top of the camera to block the visible light. The results were all dark and no UV was showing through.
