project overview

Skiná

Skiná is a mobile application concept that aims to support people struggling with acne. This project was created as a part of graduation requirement. Each student was given a complete freedom in choosing a topic and further development of the project.
Project Type
Graduation Project
Timeline
Apr - Sep 2020
Role
UI Designer
UX Designer
UX Researcher
Graphic Designer
Collaborators
Azhar Smagulova
Prof. Kyungho Lee
background

Acne affects more than your skin.

Appearance is important for acceptance in society, and unfortunately, it does not fit into any of the standards of beauty. Very often, acne becomes a cause of insecurity and suffering for its owner.

63%

increased risk of developing depression in the first year

68%

avoid social gathering during acne flares

41%

would feel uncomfortable being seen in public with a person with acne

88%

of patients feel embarrassment and self-consciousness

THE PROBLEM

Conventional acne treatment program does not take into account the mental state of patients.

The impact of acne is just getting to be acknowledged. In 2021, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published their acne treatment guideline, where it advises clinicians to consider referral to mental health services where appropriate.

🤔 The Challenge: How might we help people with acne to feel better?

THE solution

Nice to meet you, I'm Skiná!

Skiná is a social media and content creation platform that encourages users to focus on mindfulness and self-acceptance.

The main star of the app is A.I. Skiná, who continuously improves to support users emotionally.

Friendly community to meet and get inspired by resilient people who face common challenge.

Safe place to vent frustrations, be free of judgment for having acne and learn other people’s experience.

Primary research

How does it feel to have acne? Well, not good at all.

I began my research with a general question: “What is it like to have acne?”. I conducted an online research on 4 social media platforms (Instagram, Reddit, Youtube, Facebook) through reading documented experiences of people with acne. I reflected all of my findings in Empathy Map. My main takeaways about those posts are that they contain overwhelmingly negative experiences and most of them were made by women.

👀 Key Insight: If only acne could go away, people's sufferings would be gone as well. However, since it is not yet a well-understood condition there's no ultimate cure. Thus, acne could come back at any point in the future.

💡 Concept Idea: Instead of trying to fix a problem that is beyond one's control, I would like to try to shift an individual's perception to accept oneself even with acne.

Empathy Map

USer Interviews

“When almost everyone around you has skin trouble it is not odd anymore - it becomes the new standard.”

I recruited 3 women in their early 20s for user interviews. I defined that my target users are women for two reasons: they suffer from acne more frequently as adults, and are more vulnerable to poor quality of life and low self-esteem due to acne. I was interested in their acne history: how they got acne, challenges they experienced, and what have they tried to attempt to solve their problem. Below are the main insights, organized into 3 themes.

👀 Key Insight: Moderate and severe forms of acne, which cause most visible skin changes, occur relatively rarely. Thus, it might feel that you are the only unlucky person in the world who has it.

💡 Concept Idea: To help people understand that it's not true, my solution needs allow users to freely connect with others and share their experiences.

Main Insights from Interviews

psychologist Interview

“Nobody comes to my office saying they want to accept themselves. People come in pain and hope that I could do something.”

I wanted to learn more about the facilitated self-acceptance process. I conducted an expert interview with a psychologist who had experience providing therapy for people with acne. The therapy process was summarized through the "User Journey Map".

👀 Key Insight: My target users feel most distressed in the first couple of month when adapting living with acne and need emotional support. Therapy could provide that, but it is unaffordable and not popular among acne patients.

💡 Concept Idea: There's a promising finding that Artificial Intelligence could be used as a cost effective and accessible therapeutic agent.

User Journey Map

defining target audience

Depending on the duration of having acne, there are different needs.

Based on all the previous research, I created two personas. Persona #1 is a distressed "newbie" who just got acne and tries to figure out what's going on, while persona #2 had acne for a while and got used to it.

Persona 1: A "Newbie"

Persona 2: Had Acne For a While

Concept development

Alleviating pain right now, achieving self-acceptance in the long-run.

At this point, I decided the following points about my concept:
  • It would be a social media so that people with acne could easily connect with others. For ease of access, I would like to design a mobile application.
  • There would be an A.I. agent to provide emotional help.
  • The app would help would help the users to achieve self acceptance by writing diaries.

👀 Key Insight: Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us. By practicing mindfulness, one could achieve self-acceptance.

💡 Concept Idea: Journaling is a great way to practice mindfulness as we do not notice our daily thoughts. Users will have virtual diaries and be encouraged to write entries to reflect on them later, helping to achieve self-acceptance in a long run.

Since my product would be a social media, I used the "Social Media Functional Building Blocks" framework to help me decide which activities should be prioritized to match my concept.

Social Media Focus

I conducted a competitive analysis of indirect competitors of my application - acne support communities on social media, and acne support organizations, and compared how my product would differ from them.

Competitive Analysis

Through the brainstorming session, I ideated potential features of the application in greater detail.

Affinity Map of Potential Features

design

From idea to implementation.

In total, I had 3 design iterations. I created one paper and two high-fidelity prototypes. With each iteration, I refined the application concept as well as the design.

Design Iterations

Due to time constraints, I couldn't design every screen of the system. However, I planned how the system as a whole would function.

Information Architecture

The branding of my application was developed to suit the taste of my target audience.

Branding

outcome

Final Design

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