Scalp Health Monitor: A UX case study for a product concept
By Avinash Pillai
Product Background:
The “Scalp health monitor” was conceived as a product innovation for L’Oreal Brandstorm , a case study competition that is hosted by L’Oreal to connect with prospective students from top tier colleges around the world.
B-School students from the best colleges around the world form teams of 3 to come up with innovative ideas to solve a business problem centered around a common theme that falls in one of two categories:
- The tech-challenge: In this category teams are tasked with innovating a beauty tech product concept from ideation to execution . Usually , this involves creating a product concept and designing an experience centered around the product, all while keeping in mind the marketing communication and positioning of one of the many brands under the L’Oreal umbrella. (The experience would be marketed under any L’Oreal professional products brand of our choosing)
- The marketing challenge: This category primarily centers around building an integrated marketing campaign based on certain prompts. Prompts and themes change every year while the categories remain the same.
Project Background: The Tech Challenge
Aim: To design an experience for users that frequent high end salons. The aim was to come up with a product concept in the beauty-tech space.
Project Type: Corporate case study challenge- L’Oreal
Project role: Product design (hardware) , UI/UX of supporting software , User Research
PHASE 1: WHAT DO WE DESIGN?
The design prompt for the tech challenge was highly ambiguous and open ended. While this gave us plenty of creative freedom, the challenge lies in identifying areas which needed product innovation. Finding a problem that needed to be solved.
RESEARCH:
A deep dive on salon experiences and existing beauty tech innovations used in salons.
Basis: As the product is meant to be designed for salon use, we have to look at the key stakeholders involved in a typical salon visit. i.e:
- The Stylist & Cosmetologists (Cosmetologists are trained and licensed to perform cosmetic treatments to the hair, skin, and nails.)
- The Customer
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:
Primary Research (Part 1) | Consumers: We conducted a survey with 64 salon goers. The survey was administered via a questionnaire. Participants were approached at salons. Some customers were approached remotely.
Research Goals (Part 1) | Consumers:
- Understanding the service buying behavior of salon goers.
- Identifying aspirations , anxieties and insecurities of the customer.
- Commonly faced beauty related issues of salon customers.
Primary Research (Part 2) | Stylists & Cosmetologists: We visited 17 salons in Pune. Conducted 20 in depth interviews with hair stylists.
Research Goals (Part 2) | Stylists & Cosmetologists:
- Understand the stylist’s take on beauty tech products.
- Identify common challenges faced by stylists while dealing with customers
- Existing innovations used in salon service.
Secondary Research : To supplement the information gathered from our primary research , we conducted a thorough competitive audit of existing beauty-tech currently being used in the salon industry.
WHAT WE LEARNT:
Inferences In a nutshell:
- Stylists & Cosmetologists are keen to adopt innovative tech as part of their salon services.
- Salons extract value from customers by maximizing their basket size per visit and repeat visits.
- This is achieved by cross selling products with services
- “Hair related issues” are the most commonly faced problems for customers.
- Hair related issues can be solved at the roots = Scalp care
COMPETITIVE AUDIT: Existing beauty tech in the salon industry
- Kerastase Hair Coach: This hair-brush uses an ultra sensitive microphone to capture your hair’s soundwaves while combing to identify frizziness, dryness, split-ends & breakage.
2. Kerastase Scalp Massager: Massager with silicon tips that vibrates in specific circular motions that have been shown to stimulate new hair follicle growth while gently exfoliating the scalp and improving blood circulation.
Customer behavior related insights:
- The average customer visits a salon every 3–4 weeks.
- 69.5% customers prefer to book salon appointments online , if given a choice.
- 37% of consumers would like to contact the same stylist who worked on them during their previous visits.
- Over 75% of users feel that data backed treatments are better tailored to solve their hair care problems. They also agreed that product recommendations backed by quantifiable metrics will make them more inclined to experiment with their hair products.
Gaps Identified:
All service based innovations used in Indian salons centered around hair. Specifically the hair strand. This afforded many cosmetic solutions for the hair’s appearance. However, from our interviews we know that:
“Hair is a structure made mainly of keratin that grows underneath the skin, and once it is exposed it is already dead. So when we talk about hair care, what we are really talking about is scalp care.”
- MEDIC
This chain on thought backed by our research findings led us to brainstorming ways to develop a product concept for scalp health.
IDEATION PT1: The Hardware Concept
- How might we, create a product that tackles hair related issues at its root
- How might we, leverage technology to quantify and measure scalp health.
Technical Research & Concept Sketch
I have a background in Engineering and I thought back to my applied electronics class where we were discussing, some basic applications of sensors. Sensors that used light and vibrations to measure certain attributes on the skin surface. Since the scalp is essentially skin , I decided to use these sensors as a base for the product concept.
While the hardware concept sketch was ready. The hardware is only as good as the systems that enable it to provide a superior experience for its users. The next step was to build the user experience.
IDEATION PT 2: The platform that runs the show:
Basis:
L’Oreal has a network of partnerships with salons across India. These salons are a sales channel for their professional products division. Stylists in these salons are all trained by L’Oreal in their signature service offerings. In addition to the patented services that are marketed under one of many Professional product brands under the L’Oreal umbrella, these salons also retail their products to consumers. Stylists play the role of the advocate for their products.
- How might we build an experience that creates synergies within L’Oreal’s existing infrastructure of salons and stylists in India?
- How might we maximize value for L’Oreal, their stylists and customers alike, In a sustainable and scalable way?
- How might we build an integrated ecosystem for two different use cases:
1. For the stylists
2. For consumers
Use Case 1: Stylist side | Core Functionalities:
- Conduct scalp health analysis
- Portal to showcase stylist talent & track training milestones
Use Case 2: Consumer side | Core Functionalities:
- Find salons and stylists around them.
- Schedule appointments.
- Check scalp health analysis results.
- Browse & Shop for recommended products.
DESIGN
Wireframing: I started by creating paper wireframes for key screens for each use case. Finalized elements were then selected and final designs were digitized.
Digital Wireframes:
Using these frames, a LO-Fidelity Prototype was created and the user flows were iteratively tested and perfected. Post this it was now time to create a high fidelity design.
We needed to ensure that the designs were at par with the branding and positioning of L’Oreal’s luxury high end segment. We decided to brand it along the lines of the high end professional products brand “Kerestase”
UI DESIGN PROCESS:
I started by first building a brand prism for Kerestase. A brand prism is a framework used to align the marketing and branding communications of a product under 6 parameters:
Physique | Personality | Culture | Self Image (Of user who uses the brand) | Reflection (Public perception of the brand’s users) | Relationship (Between the user and brand)
The brand prism formed the guidelines for the UI design
Hi-Fidelity Mockups:
Consumer App Mockups:
Stylist App Mockups:
CONCLUSION & FINAL THOUGHTS
Creating an ecosystem with a two sided interface was an interesting challenge as two different types of users were interacting with the app ecosystem for completely different use cases.
The app needed to act like two parts of the same whole, so we needed to design the experience keeping in mind the points of differentiation while also keeping certain design parities in mind. Below I have given a run down of the features for each experience.
LEARNINGS:
- Marrying the branding concepts with the UI are important in the overall product development.
- Brand communication needs to be uniform and integrated to ensure positioning stays intact.
- Good design requires one to arrive at specific use case for each user.
- Always strive to achieve statistical significance in user research
- This will ensure that our insights are ground in reality.
- Statistical significance can be achieved with proper vetting while selecting research participants and finding an inclusive mix of users.
