MVP

Beauty App

Improving access and education to minimally invasive aesthetic procedures.

Summary

Designing and developing a product from scratch in 3 months.

The Client wanted to test the waters with a new user base and industry. They needed to validate the feasibility of their product before the end of Q1. Our team was contracted to design and develop a new product from scratch in 3 months. The product would showcase 4 primary features and would be web and mobile facing. Hence, our design team of 3 were tasked with conceptualizing solutions for these 4 features, defining brand guidelines, establishing a design system to hand-off to their design team, and work in parallel with our off-shore development team.

In this case study I will focus on my contribution to this project which included collaborating with others to identify how work can be distributed, conceiving the initial requirements to mid-fidelity solutions, and leading the feedback sessions to refine and iterate to high-fidelity designs.

The Problem

Seeking cosmetic procedures from trusted providers is stressful.

The Client saw a product gap in the minimally invasive aesthetic medicine space where users sought treatment options, but lacked the necessary data to make a decision. Additionally, the clients wanted to establish a Tik Tok-like platform where users can establish communities and post vertical video content. Hence, the specific problems we wanted to solve were: (1) could users identify and trust the info provided to them?; (2) could users find providers that they could trust?

Discovery

Distilling a lot of info in a couple of days.

At the kick-off, the Client presented their exploratory research findings and initial requirements. While their design team had conceived some concept designs, we were given free reign to conceptualize and brand this project from scratch.

Similar to other projects, I usually start off by distilling requirements and background info to visual artifacts to help me understand what we are trying to accomplish and identify gaps in knowledge.

Afterwards, I diagrammed workflows for each problem to solve to define the screens we will design. My workflows reflect an initial idea of the sequence of actions that need to occur during the journey and covers the requirements as well.

Once we're aligned with the client on how we can approach this project, next we started ideating initial solutions.

Team Workflow

Before we get into how I come up with ideas, let's talk about how we distributed tasks.

So 3 months, right? Well I lied it was more like 2 months. The first month we had to have an idea fleshed out enough for the devs to start laying the framework for the web and mobile app. To give ourselves some buffer, we tasked ourselves to delivering on high-fidelity wireframes and design system by the end of the second month.

When I start a project with other designers, whether I'm the lead or not, I believe it's important to establish roles to help make task distribution more clear. With that said, I keep these roles fluid to maximize our efficiency.

Since our team had 3 Designers, one was tasked with primarily handling the brand identify and design system, while myself and the other designer split work by the different tasks. Both of us stuck to the quick mid-fidelity components I made to ensure consistency. Additionally, I would be the primary point of contact for the clients to make the communication channels more clear.

Initial Ideation

Leveraging workflows to define the initial solutions.

When I start designing I use the diagram as a map to identify where the touchpoints will be on the product. In this example I pulled a couple mid-fi wireframes and put them next to the correlating action.

Feedback & Iterations

The balance of scope creep and innovation.

With such a high velocity and broad requirements, it was a balancing act of making sure we captured the initial requirements, explored their feedback, but made sure we delivered on schedule.

To increase our speed I always provide at least a couple options per feedback session as a means to generate dialogue and discussion. I would go over pro's and con's, and talk through trade-offs. If time permits we'll workshop ideas during the call.

When it came to defining requirements, it was always a conversation revolving: (1) deviation from initial requirement, (2) perceived impact, and (3) time allocation for not only design, but also for the development team. This obviously becomes more clear (and honestly easier) towards the end of the deadline where we are constantly evaluating how much is enough for this to be perceived as a functioning product.

Biggest Challenge

Incorporating vertical video as a means of communicating information over text.

The biggest selling point for this product was the inclusion of vertical video as a means of engaging users and informing them. While this was an essential requirement, our team found that it was necessary for some sections where text was necessary. Ultimately, we made the vertical video interaction more prominent by introducing touchpoints upon entering a new screen (e.g. the hero screen and carousel), and chunked necessary content into tabs. This way users are introduced to vertical video first, and we can reduce cognitive overload and define user tasks more clearly.

Ultimately, to solve the aforementioned problems, to have users trust us we relied on leveraging actual doctors for the pilot (other content creators material, with their consent), and as a starting point the client would source and verify all the incoming content.

Outcome

We delivered on time, and provided the client a design system that could be leveraged for future iterations.

Towards the end of the first month we established the information architecture, brand guide, and design system. This laid the groundwork for the development team to get started as we refined the high-fidelity wireframes in the second month.

Reflection

Everyone's different lol.

The challenge of working with other designers is alignment on process (conceptual and technical). Looking back, we could have done a better job at the onset getting a better understanding how each of us preferred to work and see if we can come to a mutually understood approach.

Also, never assume a developer knows how to use Figma. If I work with a dev that I've never worked with before, I would try to make time at the beginning to get a better understanding of how they translate my designs to development and see if there are opportunities for me to make their job easier (like Dev mode, all that good stuff).