End-to-end app
Role: UX/UI designer
Industry: skincare and beauty
Duration: 12 weeks
Tools: Figma, Miro, Illustrator and Photoshop
Reimagining skincare as a personalized journey of self-discovery. Glow Guide blends advanced AI with daily rituals to help users understand and care for their skin with clarity and confidence. More than just a tool, it’s a smart companion that evolves with you, making skincare feel simple, empowering, and uniquely yours.
Overview
In recent years, skincare has evolved from a simple routine into a widely popular form of self-care, especially among younger audiences. Social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok are flooded with product reviews, tutorials, and ingredient deep-dives, sparking curiosity but also overwhelming many users.
Despite this boom, most people (especially beginners) struggle to build a consistent routine. The abundance of advice creates confusion, doubt, and wasted money on products that don’t work for them. A 2023 survey by Mintel revealed that over 70% of skincare users feel unsure about which products are right for their skin type.
Background
While interest in skincare is growing, the experience remains overwhelming. Users navigate countless products, conflicting advice, and generic routines, often with little clarity or support. What’s missing is a sense of trust, personalization, and continuity. The challenge was to design a platform that turns confusion into confidence, using AI to simplify decisions, deliver tailored guidance, and support each user on a dynamic, evolving skincare journey.
The challenge
The solution
An end-to-end mobile app powered by AI that scans the user’s face to analyze skin conditions, recommends personalized skincare routines, and adapts over time. Glow Guide simplifies product choices, offers guided support, and builds user confidence through tailored, data-driven recommendations based on real-time skin analysis.
Research process
To truly understand the skincare experience from a user’s perspective, I conducted qualitative research combining:
Competitor analysis
5 in-depth user interviews, ranging from complete beginners to experienced skincare users
These interviews revealed several recurring themes and helped uncover pain points, motivations and habits that shape how people care for their skin.
Discover
01. Simplicity is key
Users are looking for a basic but effective daily routine, not a 10-step ritual.
02. Top concerns
Hydration, signs of aging, dark spots, and breakouts were common pain points from a skincare perspective
03. Credibility matters
Dermatologists and professionals are highly trusted. Social media not so much.
04. Guidance
Users feel overwhelmed by too much information and conflicting product recommendations. They crave personalized, expert-backed support in one clear, easy-to-use platform.
05. AI is welcome
Users showed enthusiasm for an AI-powered app that could suggest personalized routines, explain ingredients in simple terms and track progress over time
The turning point came with a simple yet powerful insight: skincare shouldn’t feel like guesswork. It should feel personal, empowering, and easy to stick with. That vision became the foundation for every design decision that followed.
At this stage, the goal was to move beyond the noise, to distill users’ frustrations into something meaningful. It wasn’t about adding more features or content. What people truly needed was direction, reassurance, and routines they could trust.
Define
How might we use AI to create a skincare mobile-app that simplifies information, delivers personalized guidance, and helps users confidently build routines tailored to their needs?
The challenge
Core app features
To address the main challenges users face when navigating the world of skincare—information overload, product confusion, and lack of personalized advice—I focused on a set of core features designed to provide clarity, simplicity, and tailored support. Each one is built to help users feel confident, informed, and empowered in their skincare journey.
01. Face scan and quiz
Users complete a simple face scan and short skin quiz to generate a personalized routine tailored to their skin type, concerns, and goals.
02. Smart Routine Builder
Based on the scan results, users receive a daily skincare routine with product recommendations that match their specific needs—no guesswork required.
03. Progress Dashboard
A visual dashboard helps users track changes in their skin over time and see how their routine is working, encouraging consistency and reflection.
04. Education Hub
A content-rich space offering dermatologist tips, articles, tutorials, and ingredient guides—designed to make skincare accessible, trustworthy, and easy to understand.
Feature set
01. MUST HAVES
AI-powered skin analysis: analyze the user's skin from a picture (selfie, video)
Log in / sign up
User profile: save and edit personal info, preferences, allergies, routine history, etc
Onboarding flow: skin type quiz or onboarding questions to personalize the experience
Custom routine builder: create personalized skincare routines based on the user's skin type and needs.
Educational content and expert tips: provide accessible, easy-to-understand explanations from dermatologists and skincare professionalsE-commerce links or in-app purchase integration
Smart product suggestions: suggest personalized products based on the skin analysis and user preferences.
Progress tracking: track the user’s progress over time with photos or notes
02. NICE TO HAVE
User reviews: show reviews from real users filtered by skin type and concerns, helping to make informed decisions
Routine reminders: remind users to follow their daily skincare routine.
Seamless E-commerce integration: allow users to purchase recommended products directly from the app
Reapplication tracker: track product shelf life and remind users when to replace or reapply products
Ingredient compatibility checker: check product compatibility to prevent mixing ingredients that could irritate the skin
Multilingual support: support for multiple languages to cater to global users.
User personas
To create routines that felt truly personal, I defined user personas with different skincare goals and habits. These insights guided how GlowGuide delivers AI-powered routines—adapting to real-time skin data and evolving needs. The result: simple, effective steps for beginners and customizable depth for experienced users, all grounded in each user’s unique skin journey.
Persona 1. Young and impulsive, she loves trying the latest skincare trends—especially if they’re aesthetically pleasing. While drawn to what's popular, she still wants simple, easy-to-follow routines.
Persona 2. Focused on results, he looks for effective, science-backed products. He prefers a straightforward routine and values function over branding or packaging.
Persona 3. A middle-aged user loyal to trusted brands. She’s cautious about trying new products and seeks clear, reliable guidance backed by experts.
The app was structured to support different routines, entry points, and goals. Early research showed that users engage with skincare in varied ways: some follow strict routines, while others seek quick fixes or guidance on the go. Instead of a rigid path, I designed a flexible navigation centered around five key areas: Home, Discover, Scan, Messages, and Profile. This structure allows users to explore at their own pace, whether checking their skin with a scan, browsing new tips, or tracking progress—always with clarity and ease.
Information architecture
Main user flows
User simulates the app’s face-scan feature, completes a short form, then views and customizes the suggested skincare routine by adding it to their profile or swapping out any products they don’t like.
User flow 1: Face scan and routine preview
User flow 2: Dashboard exploration and progress tracking
User navigates to their personal dashboard to review overall skincare progress, check completion status, view the current routine in detail, and browse saved or favorite products.
User accesses the app’s learning hub to search or browse educational content (e.g., about retinol), opens an article or video, and bookmarks any helpful resources for later reference.
User flow 2: Rescource section discovery
Design & develop
With a clear vision of user needs and app flows, I stepped into the design phase.
01.
Hand-drawn sketches
02.
Low-fidelity wireframes
05.
User testing and iteration
04.
High-fidelity wireframes
03.
Visual design & brand identity
With key flows defined, I developed low-fidelity sketches to explore how users would move from input (face scan + questionnaire) to actionable results. The focus was on creating a smooth, guided experience that felt both high-tech and approachable.
Core elements like product suggestions, routine steps, and tracking were surfaced early. I also considered how users could adjust their routine or swap products without losing clarity. These sketches helped validate the structure and laid the groundwork for testing and visual refinement.
Starting from low-fidelity sketches, I developed mid-fidelity wireframes to shape structure, interactions, and real content, ensuring the product met user needs and business goals before moving to high-fidelity designs.
The main tasks focused on facial scanning with personalized routine creation, tracking progress in the user profile, and browsing the resources section for ongoing support.
User feedback helped refine these features to improve usability, increase user control, and build a scalable foundation for future growth.
Visual design & brand identity
Once the layout was defined, I developed a brand identity that reflects the product’s mission: to offer clear, supportive, and trustworthy guidance, just like a reliable skincare routine. I built a modern and approachable visual system, choosing a pastel blue as the primary color to convey calmness, freshness, and confidence, values often associated with self-care and well-being.
For typography, I selected two complementary fonts: a bold and modern primary typeface to bring personality and strength to the brand, paired with a softer, highly legible secondary font to maintain a friendly and professional tone. The combination of soft colors, rounded UI elements, and contemporary typography creates a design that appeals to a younger audience without losing credibility, much like skincare products that are both trendy and trustworthy.
Prototyping, testing and iterations
To evaluate the usability of the app, I conducted moderated testing sessions with five users. Each participant was guided through key tasks:
Completing a facial scan and answering onboarding questions
Browsing the suggested routine and adding it to their profile
Browsing though the discover and resources section
Key findings & design improvements
Based on feedback, I made several key changes:
Improved navigation between screens for smoother flow
Added product tags like “vegan” or “for sensitive skin” to help users filter options more easily
Included more detailed explanations for each recommended product to help users understand why it fits their skin
Refined visual elements like toggles to improve clarity
The testing process confirmed that Glow Guide was intuitive, helpful, and engaging for users across experience levels. It also helped ensure the app aligned with user expectations and genuinely solved their pain points.
was introduced to provide users with personalized insights after completing the skin analysis, adding immediate value and context to their results.
01/ Added a brief skin report
02/ Added a screen for skin type
A dedicated screen was added to help users identify or select their skin type, creating a more guided and informative experience from the start.
03/ Toggle color improvement
The toggle component was redesigned with clearer color distinctions to differentiate between clickable options, selected states, and inactive ones — improving usability and reducing confusion.
This project began with a simple observation: skincare often feels confusing, inconsistent, and overwhelming, even for people who genuinely care about their skin. What I discovered through research wasn’t just a need for better products, but for better guidance. People wanted structure, clarity, and a sense of trust in their routines.
GlowGuide was built around that insight. More than a product scanner or AI tool, it’s a support system, designed to evolve with users and help them feel in control of their skincare. It taught me how emotional design plays a crucial role in creating habits that last. Designing for something as personal as skincare reminded me that the real value lies in making people feel seen, supported, and empowered.
Reflection
Moving forward, I’d like to expand how the app personalizes routines based on climate, lifestyle, and hormonal cycles. There’s also potential to deepen community interaction through shared progress, reviews, or expert guidance. And while AI is central to the experience, I’d like to explore ways to make its role more transparent, so users feel not just guided, but genuinely understood.