Finding non-toxic personal care products
In the United States, the federal government does not have any regulated processes in place to assess the safety of personal care products; i.e., product ingredients. Many health and beauty products contain unsafe chemicals that include parabens, sulfates, and formaldehyde. In this project, we asked “How can a technology-based product or service help people choose and find information about safe beauty products?”
We began the study by observing five users as they searched for two non-toxic personal care products (face cream and foundation make-up). Participants took about 30 minutes to complete the study. All five participants were consumers of personal care products; all five had concerns on their products being non-toxic. We learned that participants use many online resources to help them find personal care products, but there was no resource that provides end-users with both easy to understand product ingredients and recommendations based on personal preferences. Personal care products are very personalized and product effectiveness can vary from user to user based on aspects such as skin and hair type. This finding led to our expansion of our research question: “How can a technology-based product or service help people choose and find information about safe beauty products based on their preferences?”
Next, we conducted four interviews with four individuals who had experience purchasing personal care products in the past. We asked questions on how users shop for products and about their challenges during the purchasing process. We audio recorded and transcribed the interviews. We analyzed the interviews using inductive coding methods to agree on three common themes:
1. Trust while searching – participants expressed that they trusted consumer reviews, but did not trust product labeling.
2. Browse and buy – participants browsed in-store and online and selected a product they wanted to try.
3. Uninformed on product ingredients – participants indicated that they were not educated enough on product ingredients and have not thoroughly researched them.
We also created five spectrums of participant attributes and reported behaviors relative to beauty product purchasing. After placing each of our interviewees on the spectrums, we created three personas: (1) Brittany Beauty Enthusiast, who loves trying new products and seeks product recommendations, (2) Natalie Novice, who feels less knowledgeable on personal care products and wants a personalized routine based off her preferences, and (3) Robert Researcher, who typically shops in-store, reads ratings and reviews, and values peer-reviewed sources.
Lastly, we created an online survey and distributed the link to friends, family, and groups on Facebook. Thirty-five people responded to our survey. We asked questions that gathered information on how users research for products, what factors encourage users to buy products, and recent purchase behavior. We analyzed the survey data descriptively and through from data visualizations. We used a Mann Whitney U test of significance to test two hypotheses: (1) consumers who purchase personal care products very often would do less research while shopping (this was not found to be significant) and (2) female consumers will spend more time researching prior to buying personal care products than males (this was not found to be significant).
Other top level survey findings include:
1. The majority of respondents reported that they had researched ingredients in their skincare before. Participants noted Google searches, beauty blogs, and customer reviews as the main sources when researching product ingredients.
2. Respondents reported that the most influential factors for purchasing a product are: (1) effectiveness, (2) price, (3) recommendations, and (4) reviews.
Our observations, interviews, and survey results supported that a technology-based design can help users find personal care products and receive safer recommendations; our research has led to several implications for design. The solution can be used to help users find safe products catered to their preferences with functionalities that include a personal profile, product comparison, recommendations, and ingredient information.
