Project overview

Colourpop Cosmetics is an American cosmetics brand based in Los Angeles, California. I designed this conversational interface from ideation to the final design as a personal project during my internship at Headliner Labs. The chatbot features product carousels for browsing, shade finder quizzes, and product restock and release alerts.

Duration: 3 months

Tools: Adobe Illustrator, Headliner Labs’ Chatbot Builder, Facebook Messanger

project Goal

Create a chatbot to guide Colourpop’s customers, from discovery to purchase, through an automated personal shopping experience.

Retrospect

I created this chatbot before I knew anything about design thinking, so I found it an excellent opportunity to look back at this project from a new perspective. I think I could have improved my design thinking process by conducting user research and including testing phases after mapping the conversation and developing the prototype.

• User Research
  When creating ideas for this project, I used myself as a persona for the chatbot’s primary user. My user research only focused on my needs as a consumer. If I could change my process, I would have arranged interviews with at least five people matching Colourpop’s target demographic to create an affinity map. I would then use the mapped groups to help guide my decisions when choosing and designing the chatbot’s core functions.

• Testing
  Looking back, I should have tested my conversation before developing a prototype. Any improvements made would have saved time designing in the future. Instead, I made a prototype and tested it myself. Now I wish I had spent more time testing my design and getting feedback, especially since I failed to do adequate user research.

One thing I did well when designing my Colourpop bot was the control the user had during the conversation. I included an option to restart the conversation by tapping “Main Menu” in the bottom navigation. I also made sure that each conversation ended by offering the user other opportunities to explore. I remember my goal was to prevent users from hitting a dead end that might cause them to get frustrated and leave the chat. It is exciting to look back and see I was unknowingly following the user experience principle of giving the user control and freedom.