Intro

In this capstone project sponsored by Reckitt Benckiser (RB), we proposed a digital solution, including the mobile app design and the supporting roadmap about partnerships and marketing, to address the problems when customer engaging with RB vitamins, minerals and supplements (VMS) products.

Health and Nutrition Supplements Management Experience Reimagined

Vita Health App is designed as the hub of a digital ecosystem to tackle the problem we identified among customers such as confusion and lack of continuity, confidence and motivation. The solution streamlines the VMS search process and enables efficient use of time; allows the user to feel confident and find specific VMS to meet their individual needs; communicates the impacts of VMS in an attractive, clear and intuitive way. Here are features highlights:

To comply with the non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted and obfuscated information specific to client. The case study mainly demonstrates my transferable skills like design method and thinking.

Communicate the benefits

To help build confidence and give positive feedback, we communicate users' status and the benefits of keep using our products so they feel confident about our products and themselves.

We call it fulfilling health goals rather than taking pills
Monitor both their recent punctuality and completion as well as overall intake history
Visualize the benefits and aftermath with a personalized home page

Easier routine management

To make taking VMS easier, we offer simple management and remind functions. The schedule page is also prepared for other events and features that beyond pill taking in the future.

One scan to add the product into your calender
Visualize the medication routine
Remind to repurchase when the bottle is running out

Social Game

To provide motivation, we create the Vita Health Forest where users can have fun and become healthier together with their family and friends.

The feature is optional to adapt to different user characteristics
Utilize social to provide pressure and motivation
Gamify the relationship of pill taking and body health with water duct maintaining and trees

Design Process

1. Exploration

Team Vita underwent extensive primary and secondary research to understand the problem space and identified key product opportunity gaps. After synthesizing all these findings, we generated a more specific problem statement that guides our in-depth user research in the next phrase.

1.1 Background Research

We started by investigating business reports and position mapping VMS industry. Then considered social (S) context, economic (E) trends that influence VMS product sales, and technological (T) trends that could influence RB’s future strategy:

SET Factors

Online and M&B Markets is growing but earning revenue is challenging
Business reports and client's materials depict social (S) context, economic (E) trends that influence VMS product sales, and technological (T) trends that could influence RB’s future strategy.

Positioning Map

RB got a comprehensive product portfolio but less identifiable
We observe real novel players emerging in the market with various special service or prodict identity. RB is traditional but not the most huge one among traditioanl pharmaceutical players.

Skateholder Map

Nutrition supplements can be simple or complicated at the same time
Although it belongs to the healthcare industry, VMS is less regulated than prescription drugs. This freedom add more complexity in marketing and consumer sides.

1.2 Preliminary User Engagement

Team Vita began to engage with users. We did contextual inquiry with consumers and sales managers at different retail stores and interviewed some other users in order to better understand the pain points of purchasing VMS products. It's interesting to find two pairs of facts:

#1:

Good news:
There are various reasons to begin the first bottle or continue buying
Family habits, education, promotion, remedy after feeling physical discomfort, or based on a doctor's recommendation.

Bad news:
Usage could be random and sporadic, even easy to quit
An individual stated that they did not pay much attention to VMS usage or overuse because excess vitamins will be released from the body anyhow.

Interpretation:
A lack of education and ability to perceive the benefits of VMS.

#2:

Good news:
Reliance on professional advise for individual needs
The salesman in a VMS retail store stated that in most cases, customers have either done their own research on the internet, solicited help from the store employee, have doctor's recommendation or frequent users.

Bad news:
Confusion and uncertainty around the VMS search process
Interviewees state that they are usually overwhemed by the numbers of VMS products avaible on the market. Some interviewees also stated that their primary source of neutral information are sources like Wikipedia and Quora.

Interpretation:
A disjointed and time-consuming info. gathering process and a lack of trust for certain information sources.

1.3 Problem Statement

Based on insights from our background research and preliminary user research findings, the team brainstormed product opportunity gaps (POG) that highlighted different opportunity areas within the VMS ecosystem, categorize and evaluate them, and eventually compile remaining opportunities into problem statement.

Step #1: brainstorm product opportunity gaps

Product opportunity gaps represent what we can improve regrading to the issue. Compared with design concepts that emphasize how to solve the problem, POGs emphasize what we want to solve. We generated over 160 POGs this time.

Step #2: group opportunities into 9 categories

With affinity mapping, we categorized these opportunities areas and use 9 keywords to represent each category as followings:

Uncertainty/Platform:
Develop alternative channels for users to search and navigate VMS information and receive personalized recommendations

Reminders:
Promote continuity and compliance by leveraging technical assistance to build healthy rituals for taking and reordering VMS products.

Distribution:
Innovate new channels for distribution that increase touchpoints for VMS products.

Physical Products:
Develop a physical product that improves and promotes VMS compliance and continuity.

Transparency:
Highlight transparency throughout VMS product ecosystem to engage with customers.

Incentives:
Develop incentive structure that encourages consumers to take their VMS regularly.

Personalized/Customization:
Develop a solution that creates a personalized VMS experience tailored to user’s health needs.

Visualization:
Promote the continuity of VMS products by visualizing the gradual benefits of VMS and how it fits into user’s lifestyle.

Partnership:
Develop key partnership to highlight the benefits of VMS products to the health ecosystem.

Step #3: filter 9 opportunity groups by voting

We used five criteria below to screen out opportunity groups:

Step #4: synergizing remaining opportunities

After voting, low scoring POGs were screened out, we reviewed and analyzed the remainings to see whether there were complementary or synergistic relationships with each other. For example: transparency could be grouped across partnership and distribution channels; specific opportunities like ‘visualization’ could be utilized to serve the higher level purpose of opportunities such as ‘personalization’, etc.

Using our voting process and affinity grouping process that highlighted synergies and compliments, we distilled final problem statement as:

How might we drive continuity and compliance for RB products by innovating a digital solution in a holistic health ecosystem?

2. Research

2.1 In-Depth User Research

The profile of our target interviewees was both VMS users as well as VMS professionals including nutritionists, pharmacists and sales personnel. These professionals play important roles in triggering and influencing the usage of VMS products for a large number of users. The majority of the (~20 minute) interviews were conducted face-to-face with some of them conducted remotely.

The goal of these interviews was to learn about their VMS experience and identify pain points and frustrations with the current state of the VMS journey from initial trigger to post-purchase reflection.

We choose representative and
diverse interviewees

We ask questions along a general VMS journey

Key insights:

#1. Trust is an important part of the information gathering process:

“I google things and try to gauge how reliable they are. For instance, the Mayo Clinic, I know is reputable rather than other people’s websites.”
- Female, 63, Customer

“Books build trust in customers. There is so much inaccurate news. Evidence based data is good for building trust in VMS.”
- Pharmacist

“I get my information based on the objective evidence from the phlebotomist, so I trust it.”
- Male, 43, Customer

#2. Building relationships with customers through personalized recommendations helps build consistency:

“At my last physical. The doctor determined that my Vitamin D level was low from a blood test. I now take 200mg/day. I will continue taking it as long as my levels require it.”
- Male, 44 Customer

“My loyal customers continue to repurchase VMS from me because I understand their medications and the interactions different VMS have with their medications.”
- Pharmacist

#3. Customers stop taking VMS products because they don’t immediately see its efficacy:

“People always buy a month’s supply and will come back if they noticed any difference.”
- Salesperson

“When I had a rare disease during my childhood, my mom started giving me vitamins. After that, I had a very strong immune system but how can you know this is the result of vitamins?”
- Female, 32, Customer

2.2 Design Principles

Persona

Look through perspective of different interest levels and personalities

Journey Map

Clarify touch points and scenarios in the system
We refined our journey map generated in preliminary user research into a more detailed journey map here to update our understanding on the situation.

Design Principles

Understand insights in roles and scenarios and then compiled into design principles

The solution must be attractive, clear, intuitive, and communicate the impacts of VMS.

Features eventually fulfilling this principle include: Gamification, Health Status Visualization, Video VMS Tutorial, Links to Trustable Research, etc.

Must streamline the VMS search process and enable efficient use of time.

Features eventually fulfilling this principle include: Scan, Calendar, Reminder, Subscribe, Filters, Recommendation, etc.

Allow users to feel confident in the VMS search process and able to find specific VMS to meet their individual needs.

Features eventually fulfilling this principle include: Third Party Research, Customer Reviews, Community, etc.

3. Ideation

3.1 Brainstorm

Generate 100+ ideas and categorize them into 18 categories

3.2 Evaluate & Select Concepts

Select top ideas in each categories by design principles
Each teammate vote 3 concepts that he/she think fullfill design principle in each category, and them we add up those scores and picked up most desirable concepts.

3.3 Final Concept

After screening out concepts, then combined and compiled the remaining ideas into our understanding on the ecosystem, proposed a longterm product solution scheme and decided on developing more detail on mobile app in our limited time frame and resources of capstone project. Why mobile app concept:

Drive other products
It can work along, but it can also encourage other products to be more compatible with the App, and hence, more human-centered

Link through touch points
It act as a hub to link scenarios in the holistic health system to ensure consistent experience

Implementation in short-term
Compared with other product changes that requires either longer R&D period or partnership, this concept is more feasible in short-term

4. Interface Design

4.1 Prototyping & Testing

Several iterations of prototyping and testing are conducted in this phase to help us generate and decide on design details. Prototypes part contains hand sketch, digital wireframe, and high fidelity user interface. Testing is conducted among group members and external people who belong to our target customer groups.

Initial Information Architecture

Since there are multiple users flows that are belong to different kinds of user engagement, we roughly set up an initial info architecture that included all desired functionality together.

Sketch Prototype Critique + Testing

Then we divided our team into 3 subgroups to make sketch wireframes on branch assigned to us. Branches include product information detail page, cart and payment flow, online community, etc.

Afterward, we conduct testing across subgroups, which means we provide feedback on the paper prototypes designed by other sub-group. After cross-validation, we refined detail page design within the subgroup and discussed the problems that require revising overall page architecture.

Revised Info Architecture & User Flows

Design requirements and principles serves are general guidelines here when revising user flow and page layout. We resolved problems like content conflict, duplication and over-deep flows by re-organized features in a new info architecture so that the pages can better contain different user flow.

Mid-Fidelity Clickable Prototype Testing

Main pages in MVP are made into clickable version for testing. We choose people in our target user group and mainly test whether they can navigate among different tabs, complete main task such as adding a new product. Here are some feedbacks:

VMS Management Issues:
Scan and add new bottle feature is hidden behind first screen, which is difficult for the first time user.

Community Info Overload:
Categories of articles in community are to many but propobly not attract me at all. Hope there is a better way to organize those information.

Schedule is not easy to read:
Even though I will get remind messages, I still want to read and have a basic memory of when I need to take my VMS.

Visualization Issues:
It's hard to tell the difference between two pills in current design, what If I take more than three pills?

Boring Gamification:
I like the 7 days' streak idea, but if the only thing in the game is ranking, then I will rarelly care about it.

4.2 Examples of Iterations

Easier on boarding

We moved the scan feature to the home page after we realize how much it affects the experience of first-time users. Consequently, we resolved another ambiguity when putting the product detail of one bottle with multiple bottles on the same page

Visualize health status

To adapt to the situation of mobile screen display, we changed our design from a "dashboard" style to a "report" style that illustrates a user's different kinds of status one by one. Final design addressed the feedbacks about understanding the visualization meanwhile better handling extreme situations where users add many kinds of pills.

Enrich game mechanism

We feel strongly about the idea of using gamification and social to motivate users. However, the first version of the game seemed too simple. Therefore, we carefully crafted the game setting and implication, and enriched its mechanism.

4.3 Visual System

Color Identity

Brand Consistency
Vita keeps close with the original branding color, pink and magenta, of RB. It's lighter and fresher to emphasize the image of a new generation solution

Gender Neutral
We add orange as secondary color besides pink to reduce the feminine feeling. Mean while, the color also highlights an image of naturally resourced and pleasant tasting of RB product.

Stand out from crowd
This novel color scheme helps RB stands out from many other competitors who use blue and green to build up a strong identity among the market.

Detailed Guidelines

Final Design Line-up

Further Thoughts

We’d like to pay more attention to those health tracking and online shopping applications to get more inspirations on improving the experience of our current design. Multiple roles management is also another important feature that we haven't get a chance to totally figure it out because managing family members VMS intake is an interesting behavior we identify during the research. Due to the limited time duration, we also haven't accomplished sufficient testings and iterations on this design. We would also like to explore more on the gamification part because we feel very strongly about that this feature will drive people forming a good habit, including taking VMS regularly and wisely.