PICK & ENVISION
UI/UX design
PROJECT CONTEXT
In recent years, online shopping has risen in popularity, especially during the age of the pandemic. However, despite this convenience, the difficulty in searching for specific products that fit customer needs has also risen. In particular, makeup has been and continues to be among these products.
Purchasing makeup often requires immense customization for each user–from skin type and skin tone to affordability and accessibility–which has consistently created an issue for POC women with darker skin tones due to the lack of inclusivity in the makeup industry.
Additionally, as makeup is typically sampled in-store, making these decisions online can lead to higher product returns.
Scope
8 weeks
Tools
Figma
Tags
Mobile App Design
Product Design
Ecommerce
Artificial Intelligence
How can I design the makeup purchase experience to be more inclusive and customizable to the user?
DESIGN APPROACH
USER RESEARCH
Discovery: Understanding the user AND VALIDATING MY MARKET
I discovered this problem when conversing with my best friend about needing new makeup. She expressed that the pandemic has made finding makeup that fits her needs extraneous, as she was skeptical of purchasing makeup online. Oftentimes, when sampling makeup in-store, makeup specialists are there to assist customers; however, the same cannot be said for e-commerce purchases.
While spending weeks researching facts and statistics regarding this issue, to further understand the user needs and market validation, I also conducted a consumer survey, receiving approximately 150 responses.
Key results found out all of the responses submitted:
Synthesis
User PersonA
To further understand my potential users, I created a user persona depicting the motivations, frustrations, and goals of my persona. Meet Nina, a social media makeup influencer, passionate about makeup inclusivity in the beauty industry:
IDEATION
DESIGN QUESTIONS
After understanding specific user pain points, I began ideating by considering four design questions. This would help me better comprehend how I can reach the concerns of my target market.
What specific influence on business goals do I see this application having?
When considering constraints, is it more efficient to create a web application or a mobile application (or both)?
What unique parameters/behaviors do I want to set in place to ensure makeup customization for specific user needs?
When someone thinks of my application, what do I want them to think?
COMBINING IDEAS
After reviewing competitors and understanding my target audience–women ages 18-40 in the Austin and DFW areas of Texas–I decided that an app would be the most convenient and viable solution to reach these concerns.
Design/Prototyping
After deciding how I wanted to implement my solution, I began brainstorming features that I wanted to include in my app design. Based on user research, the features that I felt best fit my app include allowing the user to take an AI-generated quiz that matches them to makeup products, save favorite makeup items and store them in one place, manually search for desired products and brands, add to their shopping bag, and view products on makeup brands' websites as an option to purchase directly from these websites.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Sketches
Outlining and mapping out ideas is what helped me envision the design assets that I wanted to include in this mobile application, especially when exploring user functionality with focus on convenience and simplicity.
WIREFRAMING
High-fidelity wireframes were created to illustrate each and every aspect of the app's design including the login, sample questions from the matching quiz, the homepage displaying makeup matches, a search section, favorite items saved, the user's shopping bag, and their profile.
Interactive Prototype: APP DEMO
GETTING STARTED
When the user opens the app, they are prompted to a page that allows them to get started by creating an account. Next the user will take a quiz, which the matching algorithm will use to create product matches for the user.
APP COMPONENTS
After the user takes their quiz, their matched products will be displayed on the homepage. The user can choose any product and favorite any desired products to view again later before adding to their shopping bag and purchasing. The user can also navigate to the search section, their user profile, and their shopping bag.
Reflection
Working on this solo project truly helped me understand the design process and each and every step involved in achieving a well-defined design with effective user functionality. I was able to first learn about important components of the design process, rather than simply jumping into wireframing and prototyping, in which I went through multiple rapid iterations of my design and conducted in-depth research with potential users.
Overcoming Challenges
- Aligning design ideas that I wanted to include with user expectations for functionality
- Formulating how the makeup matching process would be mapped out with less expertise in AI and machine learning
This was my first design-related project, as it had been a part of UT Dallas' GalXC, a women-focused entrepreneurship accelerator providing aspiring women entrepreneurs the resources needed to achieve their startup ideas. Competing in the pitch competition at the end of the 8-week program, I received 3rd place.