Eventide
Project: The team chose to focus on skincare behaviors with an emphasis on sun protection, which presented unique challenges to develop a service. The use of the sunscreen is just one possible sun protection behavior among many possibilities. Research shows that while sunscreen sales continue to grow each year, so do the number of sun-related skin cancer diagnosis. This project intended to examine user-centered design strategies to create interactions with a system that leads to positive and pleasurable experiences when engaged in with services and to promote behavior change.
Solution: With the help of ethnographic research at Tybee Island, knowledge of physical, psychological and behavioral characteristics of humans were gathered and applied to design a usable, desirable and useful interactions leading to satisfying experiences. After analyzing possible points of intervention and pain points, the team evaluated ideas with the help of decision matrix against factors like innovation, feasibility, novelty, and sustainability.
Outcome: The end goal of this project was to understand the dynamics of approaching the problem solution spaces through user-centered design. In the end, the team prototyped the service at Tybee Island and gained valuable learning about prototyping planning, process, executions, and analysis or what we later tagged it as “Prototyping the prototype.” The team also learned various feedbacks from 25 participants on the service which could have been used to re-iterated the service concept had the time permitted.
Contribution: I was involved in all part of the design process from research till the prototyping phase. During the prototyping phase, I was responsible for developing the low fidelity prototype of the product as a part of the service.
Contributors: Brandon Anderson, Jason Hwang, Shreya Dhawan, Siddhant Patel, Yuk Yu Sin (Ada)
Year: 2017
PROJECT APPROACH AND RESEARCH
This project was approached based on the theory Co-evolution of problem solution space proposed by Dorst (2001). The project was iterative and rapid, moving quickly between the problem space and possible solution ideas. The team focused on understanding the problem space, the challenges and frustrations of the users, and then capturing initial themes, concepts, insights, and findings which could inform the preferred solution.
Secondary research
A wide range of secondary research was conducted in the skincare and sunscreen protection space. Altogether the research helped to understand our users better and to disregard some assumptions. Our key findings were:
1. Children who experience sunburns are more likely to be diagnosed with skin cancer as adults.
2 Sales of sunscreen are increasing year over year while skin cancer diagnoses are increasing at the same pace.
3. Demographics- White older men are more susceptible to skin cancer risks due to possible optimism bias in their ability to tan.
4. Sunscreen brands are attempting to differentiate their good by elevating them to experiences, making them more social, fun or easier to use.
5. Change in skin care behaviour is induced in the Individuals has experienced skin cancer in their family or have been diagnosed with skin cancer.
Primary research
The team conducted primary research at Tybee Island, Georgia to conduct observations with a focus on understanding what the journey of an individual to the beach. Our key findings were
1. Users carry a lot of good to the beach when they are going to be there for the day. It can be burdensome to collect, transport and maintain those goods.
2. Users are good at applying sunscreen initially but are not consistent with reapplying sunscreen.
3. Users do not always remember to take sunscreen and either borrow some or rely on other barriers for protection ( e.g hat, sunglasses, clothing, shades)
4. Mothers were particularly vigilant in applying and reapplying sunscreen to their children.
User Journey Map
Based on the primary research, a user journey map for a trip to the beach by the family noting the physical evidence, activities, and touchpoint constructed. This journey map helped to formulate sun protection service concepts which can be juxtapose at various points along the existing journey to design a serice concept
Service Concept:
The team combined the top concepts to form a system of good and services that enhances the skincare behaviors. The overall concept was summarized as
" Reshaping your skincare behaviors from reactive treatments to proactive care."
Service Encounter Map
We used the service encounters map progressively to describe the trigger and experiences of our user's encounters with our services. It helped us look at the service from a user's perspective and describe their ideal journey with our service system.
Service Package Map
The service offering map was used to visually describe the service offered to its users. The map contains core service: primary service offered by Eventide, facilitating services: the services enabling our core service, supporting services: the service enhancing and making our service unique.
The augmented offering map describes how users will get access, participate and interact with our service. This tool helped us to understand through different lenses and define our unique offerings that would attract our targeted users base, co-create value and characterize the relationship between our service and customers.
Application Development
Eventide required a powerful facilitator of the service system. The best approach was to develop a mobile experience using two scenarios and based on our user stories and tasks needing to be performed such as profile creation, subscription selection, and key business process, integrations for Eventide.
Service Prototype
The team produced a prototype of the service concept to gain valuable learning about prototype planning, process, execution, and analysis or what we would later refer to as " Prototyping the prototype." We also gained feedback on the service which would be used to reiterate on the service concept and prototypes.
Prototype Feedback
Our service is desirable to younger users who value subscription models with higher level of sophistication based on age, gender and location.
Customization is the key. The prefrence for particular goods in the subscription was preceived to be highly valuable to customers.
Additionally, the team identified ways to improve the prototype, what went well and what could be improved for next time. Ultimately, these findings showed the importance of “Prototyping the prototype” before conducting the actual prototype to refine the planning, storytelling, and flow management of prototype.
KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATOR
A list of KPIs was scrutinized before considering the most important and effective factors which would help the leadership of Eventide to see leading and lagging indicators of customer growth, satisfaction and adaptation. The balance score card framework was used to distill down to only the customer related indicators in accordance with the focus on user centric analysis,
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