Story time!

This is Beth! She is 28 years old and lives in Kansas City Missouri. She works downtown as a Marketing Agent, and lives with her boyfriend. In her spare time she likes to take her German Shepard “Hubs” for runs, and to the dog park. On an average night she gets anyway from 5-8 hours of sleep per night. She goes out to eat about twice a week. When she eats at home her boyfriend will make them meals. She says he makes excellent burgers. Although she is not overweight she claims that she does not include a lot of fruits and vegetables in her diet. During the weekends she likes to also go out for drinks with her girlfriends for Happy Hour.

Ever since her teen years Beth has been battling acne. She has fair skin that burns easily, and very sensitive. She says that as the years have gone on it has gotten a little bit better but still has issues with embedded blackheads. Her skin ritual right now is wash her face before she goes to bed and will put moisturizer on her face. She also recently got diagnosed with Psoriasis. Her dermatologist said it is not a severe case but she still gets embarrassed about the red patches on her skin. She also says it makes her feel insecure because her skin will be dry especially when it becomes colder, no matter how much lotion she puts on her skin. Another skin issue she is starting to notice is sunspots that are making her a look a bit older.

Beth wants to know how to improve her skin overall. She is willing to change her diet and sleeping habits. She wants to start to improve the quality of her skin so that later in life she won’t have any serious issues. She wants to feel more confident and wear less makeup. She also does not have a ton of money to splurge at the local spa so she is looking for more natural ways of improving her skin. She also desires a system that will allow her to document what she is doing so that if she needs to go to back to the dermatologist she can send this information to her doctor and he can evaluate what she has been doing to her skin.

For Beth to see improvements she will need to dedicate at least six weeks to see results in her skin. Examining things like how much alcohol she drinks, or if she is using sunscreen all the time. She will need to update her “app”at least once a week to show what is working for her and what is not.

All scenarios dealing with Beth:

1. Beth signs up for the app and taps in what she wants to improve, like blackheads and sun spots

2. Her psoriasis isn’t getting better so she wants to see her progress and send it into her doctor to see what else she can do

3. To help her sunspots Beth wants to know what foods and vitamins will help her skin give a natural glow. ­

Over the past few weeks I have been gathering information about skin. There is a huge amount of information and when I went to go start my wireframes it was a little difficult to execute them. I have made a site map and scenarios, but I am realizing that I need to be more specific with my scenarios; perhaps I need to think of specific personas that would download the app. I am having issues with understanding what the most important aspects of the app. Kidwell pointed out today that I should make attributes about the app and it will help to unravel what the design will be like. I am also unsure if just an iPhone app is the best choice. In one of my scenarios the user will say that they have problems with acne, blackheads in particular. To enter in the information and to reveal information about what to do next is much more of a challenge than I thought. I need to think of ways that when the user signs on, they can update how their progress is, and with that feed back if the information that I provided, if it worked. In many of the projects we have had talked about the importance of user feedback. However, I am unsure on how the user will put information in, get results, and then put feedback if (the information that I provided) was helpful. From there should be, okay this did not work for you, then try this. One of the issues with my topic is that skin does not get better within a couple of days. With the correct amount of sleep, diet, and products then the user should have healthier skin. However, just like any other medicine, it takes time to let these factors take place and see if they are working for the user. With especially an app the user will want to see results fast, and I hope that the information that I provide is effective more than quick. I think my next step is to make a persona- to help narrow down the audience, and will help to identify the brand attributes. From there I want to pick out the strengths in this app that can help people.

Another problem that I am having is if this should be an iPhone app. One of the other issues that I am having is that there is so much information that I want to get across to the user, but is it the correct area to be doing that within an iPhone app, based on scale. Perhaps a hub that people can sign onto and that can upload to an iPhone, or an iPad. Based on MX last semester, I found that as designers we can push the content from playing angry birds to educational based. Perhaps this iPad app could help people to realize that the iPad can offer more useful information and interactive work than playing games or reading the New York Times. This is an idea that I think would be useful to introduce to other people. I think that having an app that is educationally useful that can help a person out in a time frame would be useful.

Apart of my audience that I am realizing that I am targeting towards would be people with real skin issues. Many people will claim they have problems with their skin, but in reality their skin is probably just fine. My main target audience will not be the Katie Perry’s of Proactive, but (with my targeted age) people, probably women, who have been dealing with skin issues for a long time.

So I really need to get on the ball with my persona. I already know her values, and needs, but to direct her interest more in depth will help me. This will also help me to re-evaluate if my scenarios are the best. So, not trying to be behind schedule, I’m going to push for the next week to finalize the analog/ perhaps move onto the digital wireframes. I want to prefect my wireframes before I move onto the branding and asthenic qualities. I think by flushing out the rest of the wireframes, getting that more step-by-step process of what my “app”is I will determine what formal qualities this mini brand will have. Also help to come up with a better title than “skin deep” not too key on it yet.

These were some brain storming ideas I came up with a couple weeks ago that I forgot to post

Week 04

Through the last week I have done a lot more research depicting my scenarios. For example looking up more severs cases of Psoriasis and seeing what natural methods that I can display. For example in the winter time finding essential oils to help moistures that area of skin would be a great example. Like Aveda products have great sources that people could use that do not cost over $100.

Onto the design of my app, this is what I am having the most problems with. With a lot of the research I have done, there hasn’t been much “designing”. So far I have come up with many gross images or stock like images. What I have not come across are good info graphs explaining what the problem is. Like what causes ache scares in an info graph. I would like to not have all vectored imagery in my app but I would like to add. I think that having a section that says “for more information” it could reveal an interesting diagram of the skins layers. I might need to make a trip up to KU Med to see if I can look up a dermatologist’s book, because they would have more in depth information as well as better diagrams for me to look at.

For Monday, I will need to have 3 DIFFERENT directions for how this can be executed. I will also need to go through With Kidwell on my wireframes to know, which ones are working and then start to move onto Digital wireframes.

Week 04

Poking a vitamin E w a pin can

The new

Ellen Lupton has her own book on skin! (However it's not the same content, but I do enjoy the cover)

This isn't the best looking picture but apart of my research is to study the unpleasant issues, and images of skin to help depict what the person in my audience has.

10 good foods to eat for skin

So cute

Ive been thinking of color schemes

Through the last week there has been a lot of more research I have done. My original intention was to create an app that allows a user to customize their skin routine. That is still the goal but I have narrowed down to a certain age group, 25- 30 years, probably women too. I have also narrowed down my scenarios. 1. Beth wants to get rid of her acne, and help to improve her ache scares. 2. Samantha wants to help treat her psoriasis. 3. Pam wants to use the app to find out what foods are best for her skin. Based on my research I think that I will be able to make some good wireframes that will show natural ways into treating one's skin.

This a song that I have loved since I was in 5th grade, and he says to wear sunscreen =)

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be
it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by
scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable
than my own meandering
experience…I will dispense this advice now.