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        Info

︎ Ashley Kim


Index ︎︎︎

People
   ︎︎︎Wedding/ Engagement


Contact︎︎︎ Ashley.yj@gmail.com
Mark
 



Role
Product Designer

Team Members
Maitri Shah, Miley Hu,
Kyle Trieu

Process + Methods
User Research, Competitive Analysis, Prototyping, User Testing, Figma

Timeframe
8 weeks

Awareable Technologies


Background
Millions of people around the world experience balding and thinning, which leads to many psychological impacts, including feelings of helplessness and self-consciousness. Current treatment options are expensive and ineffective.

Awareable Technologies provides a solution that is affordable, effective, and safe. The product is a cap that has embedded laser technology that helps people regrow their hair over a series of treatments.

Problem
Awareable did not have a supporting platform to guide the proper use of hardware and ensure long term compliance with their treatment.


User
Research



To better understand the needs and painpoints of people who suffer from hair loss, we started by conducting some user research.

Our goals included the following:
  • Understanding emotional responses to hair loss and motivations to use treatments
  • What resources do users want to see more of?
  • What areas of improvement are there in existing products?

Survey

We created a survey to understand people’s general feelings towards
hair loss.
In addition to general demographic questions some questions we asked were:
  • What are your general sentiments around undergoing hair loss?
  • How has it affected your daily life?
  • Cause of hair loss?
  • Experience with other forms of treatment?
From our survey, we found that
  • Hair loss made people undergo an extreme loss of confidence.
  • 50% of the respondents have been dealing with hair loss for more than 5 years.
  • None of the respondents had tried treatment methods because of high costs or perceptions of ineffectiveness.

Interviews

We conducted user interviews to people who were experiencing hair loss. We narrowed in on people who had used treatment before and various types in order to gain a better understanding of their past experiences with hair loss treatments as well as their emotions throughout the process.

In addition we conducted an with a expert interview dermatologist to gain some input on different treatments in the market.
Interview findings were:
  • Interviewees did not know about laser hair growth treatments but was open to trying them if there was substantial scientific backing
  • Forgetting to do a treatment was a common occurrence, especially for ones that were necessary to do daily.
  • Progress tracking was limited to just checking in the mirror, often times not being able to see any progress which is discouraging.

Secondary
Research

We did a competitive analysis of other laser technology treatment methods, looking at product reviews to gain insight into more painpoints. 

Ideation

Affinity Mapping

We compiled the initial insights that we collected from our research to create an affinity map.

Key Insights

  • Users are sensitive to the topic, feeling insecure and a loss in confidence about their experience.
  • Users are inclined to use treatment methods that are easy to use at home and can be implemented in their daily routine.
  • Being able to see visible evidence of progress is an important part of the process.
  • Users easily forget about completing a treatment.

Personas

We created personas based on our interview findings, differentiating two major types of users that deal with hair loss. We also separated the personas into male and female users, as they tend to have different concerns and needs when facing hair loss.

Solution

Based on our research findings and synthesis, we addressed the problem by focusing in on building a mobile app that plays a supporting role in affirming instructional guidance and emotional motivation of treatment. 

The features to be included are:
  • hair growth tracker
  • treatment and photo reminders
  • calendar that shows all treatment
  • a community page
  • a FAQ page

Wireframe

Low Fidelity

We created rough sketches for low-fidelity wireframes based off the main features we wanted to include in the app.

Mid Fidelity

We worked with our client and received feedback of our low fidelity sketches, for high priority features for the app. We went through two rounds of iterating on mid fidelity prototypes, designing and receiving feedback. For these rounds we focused on ways we could better ensure long term compliance with the treatment program, through visualizations, displays of tangible numbers, and reminders.

To help the users have a better understanding of the treatment process, we added guiding visualizations to pinpoint what parts of their head they needed to take a picture of. We differentiated reminders into two separate actions: treatment and photo, and added a calendar that would show completed, incompleted, and upcoming tasks to do. To visualize progress, we added a graph that would display growth over time as well as a numerical value for new hair follicles. 

User
Testing

After finishing our mid-fidelity prototype, we set up user testing sessions on usertesting.com and collected feedback from 15 testers. Our major goal for testing was to test the flow of the app, make sure users are able to figure out how to use the various functions, and find out whether the design addresses user’s emotional needs and keep them motivated for continuing the treatment.

Users expressed confusion over which UI components would lead to certain screens, like completing a task or updating their profile. Another issue was users found it unnecessary to have to click through multiple screens to change a setting or reminder, leading to other problems with the overall user flow of the screens.

We addressed these issues by:
  • simplifying the dashboard and moving the reminder function to the settings page 
  • inserting visual elements like color and picture to make navigating tasks more intuitive
  • adding graphics that were relevant and friendly to encourage further use

Visual Principles


The app's color palette was chosen with feelings to be identified with joy, hope, encouragement, and inclusiveness as well as using friendly graphics and overall soft elements that targets inviting and friendly engagement, especially because of the findings of anxiety and lack of confidence around this topic. 

Final Deliverable



Signup/ Login


Dashboard


Progress



Photos/ Camera



Settings
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