Revolutionising Beauty Shopping: Incorporating Influencer Favourites and Exclusive Tutorials to Elevate the Customer Experience on the Nykaa App
Nykaa is an Indian e-commerce platform where consumers can purchase beauty and personal care products.
I embarked on the journey of enhancing the Nykaa app by crafting a dedicated Influencer Beauty Picks section. I aim at creating an immersive experience that empowers users to make confident and informed purchase decisions, leveraging influencer product recommendations and insightful beauty tutorials.
🎯How I aimed at bridging user experience gaps by proposing a Seamless User Journey?
Nykaa app has a Stream flow hosts bite-sized beauty tutorials from various artists. Through Preliminary research, I figured it lacks discoverability and the content is cluttered and not organised.
Since my feature leverages video tutorials I focused on integrating it seamlessly into the Stream app. Concurrently, with the goal of enhancing engagement and revenue, I incorporated multiple entry points and diverse touch points for this feature.
Here’s a look at the final prototype of my design solution:
👇Wish to interact with my design prototype? Follow along 🔗 here:
https://www.figma.com/proto/W55dnVLmzUyQdN7yJBihIU/Abhishika-KN-Nykaa-UI?page-id=0%3A1&type=design&node-id=105-1843&viewport=-56%2C142%2C0.09&t=i2xSFfOEpcyjnc9A-1&scaling=scale-down&starting-point-node-id=105%3A1843&mode=design
⏩ Traversing theUser Pathway:
I proposed a design consisting of separate section cataloging influencers. Users can filter influencers by popular categories such as Skincare, Haircare, Makeup, etc. Users can navigate to influencer profile flow which allows them to follow influencers, explore their top recommendations, and access exclusive tutorials. Additionally, the proposed design features a dedicated section for top-recommended products. This section compiles products frequently endorsed by multiple influencers, offering users a category-based filter for enhanced flexibility and control over their choices.
💡Bringing it All Together: My Journey in designing the Screens
We intend to impact the following business metrics by introducing Influencer Beauty Picks section into the Nykaa app:
- Enhanced User Engagement: Enhance user interaction on the Nykaa app by providing captivating influencer-curated content. Extended session durations and frequent interactions contribute to heightened engagement on the platform.
- Increase in Sales and Revenue: Boost sales by harnessing the power of beauty influencers to endorse products, thereby increasing the probability of users making direct purchases within the Nykaa app.
- User Acquisition and Retention: Draw in fresh users to the Nykaa platform with a distinctive and captivating feature. Retain existing users by recommending influencers aligned with their purchase and viewing history, focusing on those matching the products they frequently buy.
✍️ Initial Research Findings:
In the initial research phase, I conducted competitor research; however, as no direct competitors presently offered a comparable feature, I explored apps such as Pinterest, Instagram, and LabelLife. These platforms featured influencer or celebrity product recommendations and had existing profile screens, serving as inspiration for design ideas.
I conducted desk research, navigated through the Nykaa app and explored the Stream section which hosts bite -sized beauty tutorials but is scattered, has less discoverability and lacks any organisation. I decided on integrating my feature on the Stream interface since my feature incorporated Influencer beauty tutorials as well.
I delved into designing the product listing page, influencer profile, and user profile. I initiated the process by conducting desk research and creating a mood board for the initial rough wireframes. Subsequently, I revisited the user flow, refining certain features and profile designs based on the insights gained from the desk research.
👩🏼💼👨🏼💼 the User types and Finalising User Flows:
I researched about the current user distribution of the Nykaa app and the user groups who are following influencers and active on social media. I looked out for the base audience of Influencers and came up with the following user types for my Influencer Beauty section on the Nykaa App.
After an initial round of ideation about the user flows, I derived a macro user flow and created a rough sketch on this user flow. I went ahead and crafted How Might We questions for the identified user pain points and analysed the opportunities to enhance user experience on the flows. As a result, I came up with a list of user stories as below to choose and get started on designing it.
With a list of finalised User stories, I moved to refining my initial wireframes and re-iterated them and created a mood board from a list of screens and ideas I found in my preliminary research in other apps and flows.
⚡️⚡️ Transformative Choices in Crafting My Design Solution — The Critical Design Decisions that Charted my journey
As I ventured into the realm of designing an efficient solution, harmonising with the precise business metrics in my sights, it was evident that specific pivotal choices held the power to redefine my solution. Join me as I unveil the transformative decisions in my design journey.
1. Implemented multiple entry points and touch points to the newly introduced feature section to improve discoverability and aide in more user engagement with the feature.
🎯 Entry point:
In my initial research, I identified a discoverability issue in Nykaa Stream. Given my feature’s video focus, integrating it into the Stream tab made sense. I introduced a prominent banner on the main landing page. Hence, I introduced an Entry Point through a banner on the First Fold of the main Nykaa Landing page to navigate users to the new feature which highlights “INFLUENCER SPOTLIGHT” and “TOP PICKS” for users to view.
🎯 Touch point:
Additionally, on the product detail page for influencer-recommended products, I introduced a subtext link “Loved by n influencers”, where n signifies the number of influencers the product has been recommended by. Clicking on this takes users to a section horizontal carousel of influencer tutorials where they can view the videos without entering the Stream tab. The carousel is strategically positioned above real-time customer reviews to improve discoverability, leveraging the users’ inclination to check reviews before making a purchase. Moreover, this positioning doesn’t interfere with the existing arrangement of product details, coupon, and delivery instructions section.
2. Introduced a subtext “Loved by n influencers” on product listing cards in the Top Products section where n is the number of influencers who recommend that product. This addition aims to attract a broader user base and instill trust, signalling the product’s popularity within influencer circles and driving increased sales.
The inclusion of subtext aims to cultivate trust among customers and the influencer audience, contributing to increased sales for featured products. The Top Recommended products also offer filter options, enhancing user freedom and flexibility in navigating products by categories.
3. Introduced a subtext “Over x+ purchases of recommended products” where x is closest round number of customer purchases related to the products recommended by the influencer, and will be calculated in the backend. This aims at building trust in influencer recommendations enabling increased sales and more engagement through longer session lengths.
This strategy aims at building trust in influencer recommendations, encouraging users to explore suggested products and related routines and tutorials. Ultimately, it prolongs session lengths, enhances engagement, and contributes to increased sales of influencer-recommended products. Strategically placing the subtext within the influencer profile description optimizes real estate usage and enhances discoverability, ensuring users encounter it while exploring the influencer’s details.
This additional context will instill trust in users unfamiliar with a specific influencer, encouraging them to explore the influencer’s video feed and product recommendations further.
👁Accessibility
I advocate for digital apps to be inclusive, accommodating a diverse audience, including individuals with varying abilities, to ensure accessibility for all.
With this intention, I aimed to integrate a user-friendly interface aligning with the current Nykaa experience — which could be intuitive and uncluttered with clear navigation; I used fonts aligned to the Nykaa Design system, and emphasised on color contrasts as well.
🎲 Exploring Design Elements and Components:
In order to design the newly introduced Influencer Beauty Scetion, I tried to mimic the Nykaa design system to keep my designs consistent to the existing Nykaa application. I came up with various color styles and Typography closely matching to the current experience on Nykaa.
I created atoms and molecules for aiding in the process of creating complex components and made use of Auto Layout and Scrolls in various sections to create a user interactive feed for my design solution.
💁🏻♀️Advancing To Usability Testing and Iterations:
Conducting tests on the initial screens with peers and potential users provided valuable insights. I carefully analysed these insights and ideated and iterated upon the feedback, implementing changes where deemed necessary.
After designing the Screens, conducting usability testing and re iterating on the screens, I went ahead with the interactions to connect the design flow.
📱Final Design Solution:
Below is the prototype for user flow into the Influencer Listing page through the Nykaa Landing Page First Fold after the iterations
Below is the prototype for user flow into the Top Recommended Products Listing page through the Nykaa Landing Page First Fold after the iterations.
🔭 Future Scope:
- Designing the user flow for the users who follow a set influencers, designing their feed and notification pathways.
- Implementing Designs for notifying users when any new video tutorial or product recommendation drops from any of the influencers tehy follow.
- More usability testing from potential target users could be conducted in order to receive various perspectives on the designed flow and further iteration could be done.
✍️ Key Learnings:
While designing the solution in an intensive 48 hour journey, I had some major learnings to take away with me.
- Leveraging ChatGpt to act as an enabler in the design process. To gather ideas, figuring out the business metrics and efficient incorporation of them helped me focus more on designing a better solution.
- It has helped me understand the Iterative nature of designs. After conducting usability testing with real users, I could act upon the feedback and the iterated designs were sure to serve a better user experience.
- Working under an intense time constraint helped me manage time more efficiently and clearly define deadlines for each design process and have more focus on the task in hand. This enabled for a successful submission of my designs before deadline.
- Adapting on the face of challenges, I could adapt my processes, leverage the resources in hand and maintain a calm headspace to focus on the task in hand and see to its completion.
You’ve reached the end of my case study! Thank you for your time to go through work:)
Your feedback would be highly appreciated! You could find me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhishikakn
I would like to thank my mentor UX Anudeep for providing this opportunity to enhance my UX and product skills. His invaluable insights and support have been instrumental in shaping my skills and approach. Thank you for being an inspiring mentor and fostering my growth in the field.
