EcoTooth - Tooth+
Designing an app that helps improve your dental hygiene, for a sustainable toothbrush company
Duration
1 month project
My Role
Research, analysis, UX design, component library, user-testing.
Team
4 Designers, 1 Product Manager, CEO & CCO of Eco Tooth
EcoTooth – Tooth+
I worked with a sustainable toothbrush company, Eco Tooth. To design a revolutionary app for their new smart toothbrush, Tooth+. The app’s aim was to learn your habits and daily routines, to improve your dental hygiene. We researched different users’ experiences while brushing their teeth to understand the users pain points and goals. To ensure we created an app that was user focussed.
The problem
Customers associate brushing their teeth as being a monotonous task. By giving customers a personalised experience and using gamification we aimed to reinvigorate the task for users.
The goal
To design an app that helps improve your dental hygiene, by monitoring usage and educating its customers. Designing an iOS app for the new Tooth+ Smart brush that easily displays:
- User’s oral health score
- User’s habits and daily routines including length of time people brush for.
- How effectively the user is brushing their teeth
- An AI chat option that the user can ask about dental hygiene issues
Research methods
Competitive Research
To better understand how to meet both the client and the user needs, I conducted a competitor analysis. We looked at brands that offered a smart toothbrush that could be paired with their own app. I then categorised the most common and popular features within a feature comparison to reveal any trends. We discovered that customers who use an app enabled smart toothbrush, have grown to expect these features:
- A 3D map of their mouth
- Real Time feedback while brushing their teeth
- Provision of technique tips and feedback while brushing
- Highlighting of areas in the mouth have been missed during brushing
User Survey & Interviews
We then started a screener survey, to gather information quickly from a variety of people. Alongside conducting more in depth interviews with 15 different users, via Zoom, who fell within Eco Tooth’s target demographic. We learned the following:
- 96% of users have no personal toiletry subscriptions, being unaware of their existence
- 2.5% of users currently use a dental app
- 11 out of 15 users would avoid a dental app with the assumption of being too expensive and complicated
Understanding the problem
After conducting our further research, through customer journey mapping and user flows, we needed to focus our findings. To achieve this we created Jamie, a personification of Eco Tooth’s target demographic, and an embodiment of our key findings. To elaborate on who Jamie is, we created an Empathy Map, and a Storyboard following her typical experience when brushing her teeth.
Ideation
After the initial research, we began a design studio workshop with the CEO and CCO of Eco Tooth. This ensured that both sides had an agreed understanding of the most likely outcome of the app. We focussed on one problem statement, allowing all team members to quickly sketch a variety of solutions. We combined the best features and design elements to create a solution that we thought best solved our users’ needs.
After we had an agreed idea on a solution for the primary problem statement, we began to create our low fidelity wireframes. Keeping the first iteration of the design very low fidelity, we began to test it. Testing it before we added any further detail, ensured the feedback we received was based on the core foundations of the app, e.g layout, usability, any edge cases etc.
In Conlcusion
After presenting our work and prototype to the client. They expressed how satisfied they were with how we’d managed to both meet their brief requirements and fulfil their customer needs through an engaging and intuitive product. They were so pleased with our work that they invited us to develop further beyond our placement.
What did I learn?
- I learned to manage a client’s enthusiastic expectations and focus them on the product’s essential features first.
- I learned that prioritising and allocating tasks with clear deadlines and expectations were essential.
- I learned how to acquire new software skills to maintain momentum during the shift to remote working.
What’s next for Tooth+?
These are the additional features that, with more resource, I would add to the app:
- Check for accessibility (AAA colour contrast)
- Eco Journey — a visual representation of the user’s increased environmental awareness
- Further develop the subscription options for users
See more of my work
H&B
Self Scan Checkout
H&B
Cerebro
H&B