I ended up with two ideas that resonated with me. One was a program designed to help people that suffer from skin conditions to understand their condition better. They would be able to track their triggers and get gentle notifications to warn them if the conditions are currently likely to cause a flare up. 

The second was an IoT product. Different people suffer from skin conditions in different ways from different triggers. 

‍There are many preventative methods and treatments that are recommended, and it can get pretty tiresome for sufferers to keep up with it all. 

Depending on factors such as which condition you have, your current skin state and the weather, you should use different products. When your skin doesn’t have a flare up, you should use natural products with an oilier base to keep your skin moisturised. When your skin is bad you should use something medicated with something like cortisone and use a softer, lighter cream to not damage your sore skin. 

My idea was a device that would be attached to their bathroom wall. They would complete a survey or scan their skin on an app, and then this device would dispense the correct mixture of cream for the current state of their skin.

I took these pen and paper sketches and created a list of UI deliverables, which was really helpful to think out how my product will need to function.

After all this exploration I moved onto my prototype.

Firstly I attacked the physical product. Something that is designed to be attached to a bathroom wall. Designed like a soap dispenser. It would have four different compartments that house four different types of cream that mix together after entering information into the app. One thick, one light, one medicated and one natural.

I mocked up a couple of options in Photoshop. I wanted it to look sleek and interesting. But not too crazy that it would look out of place in bathrooms.

Next up I worked on the UI of the app. The main thing I decided to always come back to was to make it feel clean and natural, but also with a touch of medical seriousness. 

Skin conditions can really hurt a person’s self confidence, so I want the font and colours to feel peaceful to them, but also give them confidence that this product will work.

I had to decide what user flow to prototype. I feel like the sign up process for this would be important. Because of being a medicated product, I would need to figure out the best way to get the user approved by a doctor. My initial idea was to hire dermatologists that the user would video call with on sign up. But in the end I decided to focus on the standard daily use case. I wanted to test this first to make sure that this product is something that will actually resonate with the target audience. 

Using the Fogg model of user behaviour, I knew the user already has motivation because I knew they’re sick of their condition. So I needed to ensure I gave them the ability and triggers so that the product works for them.

Ability comes with simplicity so I tried to make sure the app and product are extremely simple to use.

The user opens the app, chooses to scan their skin or answer a survey. If they choose to scan, the app will judge their current skin condition and then create a cream using a mix of the four different creams in the device. Once the app has devised the correct solution for the day, the user will need to stand within 5 metres of their Dermate device while the app connects to it. 

‍The button would now light up green on the device, which means the user can press it to collect their cream for the day.

Triggers would be throughout the process in the use of friendly affirmative language, and gentle notifications if the user hasn’t gone through the process that day by a certain time.

I now took my prototype back to my interview subjects. I used a simple method for remote testing called laptop hugging.While using the product they commented on these factors.