Background

Eczema is a common chronic or recurrent inflammatory skin disease and affects 15-20% of children and 1-3% of adults worldwide. It cannot completely be cured with today’s medical technology and it can only be managed.

As technology has been improving the healthcare industry, the number of health tracking apps has also been increasing. However, there are not enough eczema related apps that truly understands the pain of eczema sufferers.

Due to the nature of eczema, it is important and inevitable that the patients know their body well, which will help improve the conditions. Sukinn understands this and wants to help them by creating an app where their journey is made better.

Challenge

Design an app from scratch.

Market Research

I began by conducting secondary research to gain knowledge around the market; I wanted to know what kind of eczema apps currently exist and what is considered important in the journey.

After conducting the research online, the followings was discovered:
1. Females tend to suffer from atopic eczema than males and over 80% of them have been struggling with the conditions for more than 5 years.
2. Eczema is so visible that people living with it may suffer serious emotional and effects.
3. There are "businesses" that take advantage of the patients' pains and needs, which is why advertisement needs to be carefully used if required.

Competitor Analysis

As I discovered during the market research, there are only several apps that focused on eczema. To know common patterns and how to position the new app within the market, I conducted competitor analysis.

I selected these two apps as direct competitors in my competitor analysis to cover different scales of focus - Eczema Tracker is designed for eczema and Imagine covers different skin issues.

I had an impression while searching for similar apps that apps with more up-to-date design had a lot of reviews. Most of eczema focused apps did not have the design.

Surveys

As my first primary research for the project, I chose surveys to have a look at quantitative data and learn what I need to dig deeper.

I had a total of 16 questions answered by 17 participants who are mainly age of 15 to 30.

The survey results include:
1. Learning what works is the most difficult, followed by controlling negative thoughts.
2. Besides medical experts' advice, patients want to know diet information, patterns of flare ups, and products recommended by other patients.
3. Only 4 out of 17 have experience in recording their condition.
4. 13 out of 17 think communicating with other patients helps them in their eczema journey, and 8 of them do so to mentally feel better.

Interviews

Interviews were also conducted after the surveys to focus on qualitative data and ask patients about their motivation and reasoning in detail.

In each interview I had 15 questions and asked 4 participants to answer the questions based on their experiences.

Due to a number of answers and the length of the interviews, I created an affinity map to sort and analyse the data.

Some key takeaways include:
1. All the interviewees would upload anonymous photos.
2. 3 out of 4 interviewees were/have been embarrassed about their eczema.
3. Those who have accepted their eczema value communicating with other patients more.
4. Almost all the participants of the survey and interviews have suffered from eczema for their whole lives or for more than 10 years.

Problem Statement

Initially, my idea of the app was that it lets the user know patterns of their condition in statistical data and as an extra or side feature the user can have chat about their condition and tips.

However, the research revealed that people are not really in need of this kind of data, but are struggling to know what additional solutions they can take besides medical experts' advice.

They also find that talking to other patients or people who understand them generally makes them feel better in their journey, as they tend to feel alone, demotivated and stressed.

I questioned in the research what exactly needs to be solved and the problem statement below was formed.
1. How might we let the user connect with the others?
2. How might we make the recording feature more useful?

Personas

Based on the findings, two different personas were created to cover different types of the user - meet Ashley and Daniel.

Key points of the personas include:
1. Ashley mainly focuses on recording, while Daniel wants to connect with other patients.
2. Both of them have suffered from eczema for more than 10 years.
3. Though their levels of eczema severeness are different, they both want to learn from other patients.

Customer Journey Map

I chose to create a customer journey map so I have a part of an empathy map and all the stages in one place. Although there are some parts in common, the map includes both Ashley's and Daniel's emotional states and thoughts.

Having eczema, as mentioned several times in the interviews, can be depressing at times and it was made clear to me that the new app is about helping the user working towards the improve phase in the map.

User Flows & Task Flows

After discussing with my mentor Kieran, I decided to write down quick task flows with a pen and paper, which was not planned at the beginning, to help with user flows.

Then I created the user flows below which shows paths of Ashley and Daniel.

With these deliverables, I learned about the possible paths that can be taken by different users and thought of sitemap ideas at the same time.

Sitemap

I also created the sitemap below to make the structure of the app clearer.

As I was thinking in the research and define phases, I found that using a similar structure to popular social media apps might be a good idea. At this stage, I was considering to have user and condition search, which is limited.

Sketching

At the beginning of the project, I was aware of the time given and work needed to be done. I discussed with Kieran and I chose to skip the mid-fi wireframes and spend a little more time on quick sketches of the screens.

I researched further and used design patterns of popular social network apps that a lot of people use so that there is no particular need for the user to put a lot of effort into learning how to use the app.

What I realised while sketching was that recording by taking photos was still a main feature of the app and it was important to have the add button in the thumb zone.

Mood Board

Once I had some ideas on what each screen looks like, I went on Pinterest to brainstorm and collect any inspirations that help the visual side of the app design.

At this stage I had listed adjectives for the brand visual identity:
Calm, relaxed, welcoming/approachable, reliable, clean, modern, positive/hopeful, healthy, supportive and soothing.

To make things extra clear I also had some adjectives to avoid as well:
Dark, depressing, aggressive, negative and irresponsible.

Logo Design

As the brand never had a name, a name as well as logo needed to be created. Even though I had been thinking what to call the app in the early stages, this process took a while.

I wanted to make it sound creative to differentiate from the other skin related apps and thought of "Nagi", which means calmness of sea with no wind. This was meant to imply the ideal condition of eczema.

However, as I kept thinking from the user's perspectives, it started to sound like a difficult name to remember. Since the business is starting out in the market and it is important to choose an unforgettable name. Nagi might also look like a word "nag" or something irrelevant.

After some brainstorming, a name "Sukinn" came to my mind. "Suki (meaning "like" in Japanese) + skin" which is inspired from what one of the interviewees mentioned - being comfortable in your skin is difficult but important to stay positive.

Out of a few ideas, I created a logo that is memorable, positive and soothing to the eye.

UI Design

I created UI design of the main screens to complete paths based on my sketches and iterated a few times with my mentor's feedback.

It was challenging to create UI design that encourage the user to record and interact while trying not to stress them by evoking the itchiness.

Usability Testing

With the prototype created on Figma, a test was conducted to:
1. Test how easily the user can complete set tasks while navigating through the app screens.
2. Identify any areas for improvement based on feedback given by users.

The test was conducted using Maze due to the flexibility and especially the nature of the specific market.

I recruited 7 participants who have had eczema and asked them to complete a set of 4 tasks.


Main takeaways of the test results include:
1. A label of the tabs in the Me screen should be changed.
2. Some of the UI design should be updated to make the interface clearer.
3. Concerns about only one demographic (young women) receiving support.
4. A participant pointed out that “Inflammatory conditions are driven by cytokines which can be measured, skin appearance is very subjective” and the app misses the big picture.

While I received a lot of positive feedback such as "the design seems simple and easy to use" or "the social aspect of the app is nice to avoid feeling alone", there were a few feedback that I could use for improvement.

Due to the nature of my recruiting method, I was unable to follow up with the testers who left the feedback number 3 and 4 listed above. This is something I could further work on or dig deeper if I have a chance to come back to the project in the future.

UI Design

I made some changes after the usability test to improve the design.

It was challenging but rewarding to consider accessibility by working on the colours while conveying the bright and soothing brand message. I learned how to balance between scoring high accessibility and keeping the soft colours.

UI Kit

I was working on the UI kit as I created or change my UI design. The final UI kit is shown below.

It took some time to create this deliverable as it was the first time I have included elements in further detail. However, it was very rewarding and allowed me to learn how I could keep my design consistent and organised.