User Study

With our ideas from the previous phase, we sought out validation through user studies, utilising methods we learnt in class such as contextual inquiry as well as storyboarding.

User Groups

Based off our use-cases previously, we identified our main users as being one of these 3 broad categories:

Inexperienced users who want to learn more about skincare.
Somewhat experienced users who have some background knowledge.
Experienced users with extensive knowledge on skincare.

These users would also fall under one or more of these categories depending on their needs:

Users who want to develop a skincare routine.
Users looking for specific products and reviews.
Users who need help keeping track of their routines.
Users that want to keep track of the products they have tried in the past and their effects.
Users who want to sell products that they minimally tried but did not work for them. Similarly, users who want to buy such products.

User Study Plan

We aimed to conduct a contextual inquiry of up to 4 potential users with one coming from each of the categories we came up with. To source for interviewees, we considered multiple sources, from Skincare Interest groups in National University of Singapore to Dermatologists from various clinics. We eventually were able to get a few students from Tembusu College's Skincare Interest Group to consent to us conducting a contextual inquiry on their typical skincare routine.

Excerpt from our storyboard used to visualise our findings

Outside of the CIs we were also able to conduct a Focus Group Discussion with some of our friends interested in skincare to obtain better insights as to how to support one's purchasing decisions. Finally, we were also able to grab hold of a Dermatologist for an interview on what one should do to get started with skincare.

Screencap of one of the interview/ CIs we conducted

Findings

After first using an affinity diagram (see above) to group together the insights gleaned from the user study, we have further summarized our data into the following points:

Carrying out their skincare routines

Users would sometimes forget to perform parts of their skincare routine, especially when it is more complex
Users might feel lazy and neglect to carry out their routine

Learning about skincare

Information on certain brands or on products the user wants to learn more about may be scarce
Information on a product from different sources may not focus on the same aspects, making it difficult to synthesize
Information may not be fair, entirely credible or scientific
Product names and packaging do not always intuitively express their function, which poses additional difficulties for new users and increases the barrier for getting into skincare
Information is too scattered
Research is too time consuming

Cost Concerns

Products are expensive, and it is unsustainable to keep on purchasing and trying them
It is difficult to tell if a product’s effectiveness is worth its price

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Importance of Understanding Product Ingredients

For many mid to advanced users, the composition of a skincare product heavily influences the decision when making a purchase – most would take note of ingredients that they have had an adverse reaction to and stray away
The composition should also mainly comprise of the ingredients that are beneficial to their skin as opposed to ones which have high concentrations of fragrance
These ingredients usually have complex names that are tough to remember as well as having various functions – these make them tough for skincare enthusiasts to keep track and remember, let alone newcomers to the scene
This poses a gap in the market for a tool that can aid skincare enthusiasts identify their products better

These responses largely validate our initial expectations on users’ needs and give us additional insight on specific problems which they face, but also illustrate that the understanding of product ingredients is a significant area of concern which we may wish to integrate into our solution.