Glowd

May 2025
UX/UI Design, Visual Identity

When doing my usual cycle of trying a new beauty product I found on TikTok and then replacing the product for a new variant of the same category once I was done with it, I noticed I was coming across a problem — not just the amount of screen time this whole process was consuming, but how overwhelmed I would feel after selecting the new product I would try, wondering if my money was worth going into the specific product. Not just this, but also the doubt of whether the people whose reviews I was trusting were actually using these and not just getting paid to promote it.

Social media platforms are often heavily influenced by brand marketing, influencer sponsorships, and unfiltered reviews. Users are often left overwhelmed and questioning the authenticity of said reviews and the hype around certain products. Glowd aims to strip back this saturation and center the user — real people with real skin and real opinions.

Research
By interviewing beauty and skincare users between the ages of 22 and 28, I was able to understand:

Research approach: 80% of users mentioned social media as a form of deciding what products to buy.
Trust factor: 60% of users mentioned trusting people that have similar ethnicity and/or skin/hair types.
Ingredient awareness: 40% of users mentioned looking at or understanding ingredients in a product, one feeling like she is “obligated to since [her] skin is so prone to breaking out”.

Through user research, I was able to identify some pain points:

Bias: influencers often post sponsored content so it can become hard to filter between which are real opinions which are not.
Trend consumerism: one user mentioned trends in certain products and how the constant change in trendy products makes it hard to keep track.
Ingredient awareness: because people don’t know about ingredients, it is also hard to log what ingredients or formulas have worked well in the past.

Additionally, I gained insight through competitive analysis, by looking at other beauty centered platforms:

Key Insight: available platforms are very forum-based, have outdated UI, and are less socially interactive.

Based on insight, I developed three user personas

Ideation & Concept
I started with a journey map and an opportunity sheet of a typical skincare shopper.

Ideal User Journey

Opportunity Sheet

Based on research and ideation, I developed three key features:

Personalized Review Filtering

Tailored Recommendations: Review filtering system that allows users to filter reviews based on skin type, ethnicity, beauty concerns, and preferences.

Beauty Shelf & Product Tracker

Track & Compare Products: Enable users to log and rank previously used products to help keep track of effectiveness and preference as a reference for future purchases.

Social Interactive Platform

Add and interact with friends: Builds a community where friends can share their routines

Narrowed the scope to focus on sharing + ranking products, which was followed by a user flow map.

User Flow

Prototyping

Sketched wireframes of how I wanted my app to flow

Low-Fidelity Wireframes: tested and discussed with peers and friends, and got feedback to simplify the different pages, having five navigation points rather than five, making each page more minimal.
High-Fidelity Prototype built in Figma: used microinteractions and minimal UI for an inviting, clean aesthetic. Inspired by the apps we use often, the navigation bar allows for a comfortable introduction to this app with familiar UI, reducing learning curve for new users by laying out core features.

Developing Glowd’s visual identity

Add and interact with friends: Builds a community
where friends can share their routines

Track & Compare Products: Enable users to log and rank previously used products to help keep track of effectiveness
and preference as a reference for future purchases.

Tailored Recommendations: Review filtering system that
allows users to filter reviews based on skin type,
ethnicity, beauty concerns, and preferences.

Navigate Glowd yourself

works