Trybe

Helping Black women find safe and effective alternatives for personal care products.

Role

UX/UI Designer

UX Researcher

Project Type

Academic Capstone Project

Timeline

18 weeks (over 8 month PT bootcamp)

Tools + Platform

Figma

iOS

The Problem

More and more personal care products marketed towards Black women are found to include toxic ingredients known to impact various aspects of their health.

I came across a TikTok posted by Consumer Report about carcinogens found in braiding hair. The video quickly became viral as the comments became filled with Black women who have been wearing braids for "protective" styles since they were children, sharing their confusion and anger about this news. Unfortunately, there’s limited research on the safety of personal care products marketed to Black consumers.

This inspired me to investigate what solutions exist specifically for the Black community to navigate product safety.

The Solution

  • Trybe becomes an expert in the user after a short quiz, providing personalized recomendations, making shopping feel easier

  • Trybe becomes an expert in the user after a short quiz, providing personalized recomendations, making shopping feel easier

  • Trybe helps users make informed decisions about a product’s safety and benefits by letting users search by typing or taking a picture

  • Relatable reviews from Trybe community members who share real experiences from women with similar goals, concerns, and routines

  • Trybe becomes an expert in the user after a short quiz, providing personalized recomendations, making shopping feel easier

  • Trybe becomes an expert in the user after a short quiz, providing personalized recomendations, making shopping feel easier

  • Trybe helps users make informed decisions about a product’s safety and benefits by letting users search by typing or taking a picture

  • Relatable reviews from Trybe community members who share real experiences from women with similar goals, concerns, and routines

Secondary Research

According to Environmental Working Group (EWG), personal care products specifically marketed to Black women are more likely to expose them to toxins that increase the risk of fertility issues, hormone distruptions, cancer, allergies & other diverse health effects

This is alarming considering:

13% of the US population are Black

13% of the US population are Black

22% of personal care spending is by Black consumers

22% of personal care spending is by Black consumers

Competitive analysis

The competition lacked cultural relevance and guided support

ThinkDirty App
Yuka
Onskin

While analyzing popular ingredient scanning apps like ThinkDirty, Yuka and OnSkin, I found that none reflected the lives experiences and routines of Black women. Each focused on ingredient safety, but lacked cultural context, transition guidance, and community trust to help users make informed decisions.

This gap presented an opportunity for a solution centered on culture, care and confidence.

User Interviews

Black women of different ages want more than “clean” labels. They seek confidence that products are safe for them and often look to trusted voices and relatable experiences over mainstream sources.

I conducted 3 user interviews with Black women with ages ranging from 30 to 60 years old.

T

T

Actress, 30, Toronto

E

Personal Support Worker, 60, Toronto

L

cook, 55, Toronto

I chose to do user interviews to seek solutions directly from the source. I decided to do conduct interviews because I wanted to understand:

  • How important using natural products is to Black women?

  • How knowledgeable they are about the risks that staple products may pose on their health?

  • How shopping habits impact which products make it into daily beauty routines?

  • What would make Black women more confident in choosing personal care products with less hazardous ingredients?

  • How can we help Black women swap out hazardous products in their daily routines with less hazardous ones?

I chose to do user interviews to seek solutions directly from the source. I decided to do conduct interviews because I wanted to understand:

  • How important using natural products is to Black women?

  • How knowledgeable they are about the risks that staple products may pose on their health?

  • How shopping habits impact which products make it into daily beauty routines?

  • What would make Black women more confident in choosing personal care products with less hazardous ingredients?

  • How can we help Black women swap out hazardous products in their daily routines with less hazardous ones?

I chose to do user interviews to seek solutions directly from the source. I decided to do conduct interviews because I wanted to understand:

  • How important using natural products is to Black women?

  • How knowledgeable they are about the risks that staple products may pose on their health?

  • How shopping habits impact which products make it into daily beauty routines?

  • What would make Black women more confident in choosing personal care products with less hazardous ingredients?

  • How can we help Black women swap out hazardous products in their daily routines with less hazardous ones?

Main Insights

Theme 1: Trustworthy reviews + recommendations

Users relied on suggestions from family, friends & people with similar demographics

Mainstream reviews feel unreliable or irrelevant

Social media and word-of-mouth are key trusted sources

Theme 2: Ingredient Awareness + Health Concerns

Users find product labels and ingredient lists confusing

Long-term health and safety drives choices, with concerns about chemicals linked to hair loss and reproductive health

Users turned to DIY or “clean” options if they couldn’t find a product they trust

How might we address the confusion and lack of trust Black women face when trying to choose safe personal care products?

Persona

Patricia

The Ingredient Investigator
60 y/o
Personal Support Worker
Toronto, ON
Bio

Patricia prioritizes safety and trust when choosing personal care products. She avoids harsh ingredients, relies on relatable reviews, and wants to feel confident in her choices without going through trial and error.

Behaviors

  • Researches products on YouTube and social media

  • Only trusts reviews from family & people with similar demographics

  • Chooses product with fewer, recognizable ingredients or makes her own

Goals

  • Find safe products without harmful ingredients

  • Access credible & reliable reviews to avoid trial and error

  • Understand ingredients and their long-term health impacts

Pain Points

  • Limited safe options for hair and makeup

  • Hard to trust mainstream product reviews

  • Past trial & error caused severe reactions and hair loss

I chose to base Patricia on the experiences of the two older user interviewees from research stage. This is because, while the younger interviewee faced similar issues, the two older interviewees didn’t know how they could use their phones to help them make decisions.

Focusing on a digital solution that’s easier for an older user, will ensure that more Black women, regardless of age, will be able to use this app with ease.

Design + Setbacks

I started the design process by creating a task flow for users to search for products using various sorting and filtering options. But when I finished, I realized it might be too complicated for Patricia to navigate.

Initial Task Flow

Issues found

  • It had way too many steps

  • Complicated flow could be overwhelming to navigate, especially while shopping

  • Relies too much on the user to apply filters and use the compare + sorting feature

Final Task Flow

What's Working?

  • It had way too many steps

  • Complicated flow could be overwhelming to navigate, especially while shopping

  • Relies too much on the user to apply filters and use the compare + sorting feature

Testing + Improvements

Based on feedback from 10 participants across two rounds of usability testing, several improvements were identified to enhance usability and clarity. The most common requests included refining navigation elements, clarifying icon labels and button functions, and making the camera scanner more intuitive. Users wanted more detailed product information and better visual communication of the app's mission through badges and design cues. Additional suggestions included adding sorting and filtering options, improving the onboarding experience, and incorporating features like product comparison and personalized recommendations to increase user confidence and engagement.

Round One Changes

Improve Camera Scanner

  • Changed labels of buttons to highlight their use

  • Moved “Flash” button beside other camera buttons

  • Reduced size of camera guide

Adjust card size of searched product

  • Increase visual hierarchy by increasing size of product being searched by the user

  • In the final iteration, I removed the other search results to increase focus on the product being searched

Specify “Top Rated” and “New Releases” title to be more descriptive

  • Adjusted titles of product category cards to align more specifically with featured products

  • Reduced the size of the titles

  • Created other categories like “Fragrance-Free Favourites” and “Black-Owned Hair Staples”

Round Two Changes

Update "List" icon to "Wishlist/Favourites" with heart icon

  • Adjusted titles of product category cards to align more specifically with featured products

  • Reduced the size of the titles

  • Created other categories like “Fragrance-Free Favorites” and “Black-Owned Hair Staples”

Add badges to products (vegan, clean, etc.)

  • Created badges to highlight product benefits so users have overview of benefits without needed to read product details

Add more information on why product "is a good fit"

Included product highlight badges to final quiz results to provide further explanation on why the user should buy this product

The final product

View prototye

Style Guide

Aa

Montserrat

Font Family

Montserrat

Styles

Regular

Medium

SemiBold

Bold

Logo

Application Icon

Colors

Accent

Primary

Lessons Learned

Start at the beginning

Gathering user information from the beginning would have created a more intuitive inspiration, and also probably would’ve avoided the challenges I was having with the task flow

Consider the source

During my research, I asked the older interviewees questions on how they would like to use they could use their phone to create a solution to this problem and they weren’t sure how. This insight did inspire the flow for the app but the question didn’t give specific suggestions for possible features as I had hoped. I think framing the question to understand how they use their phones already, so I could expand on that.

Plan for pivots

I found that I need to take more time before starting a project to create a plan of action that included a back up plan if I was short on time and needed to scale back. Along with continuously asking for feedback, this helped keep me accountable and stay on track.

Keep it simple

I had to revise my task flow and colour palette a few times which took up valuable time. Keeping things simple will narrow the focus to make the design process more efficient.

Check out my other work

Trybe

Helping Black women find safe and effective alternatives for personal care products

UX Research
UX/UI Design
Mobile App Design
Web Design

MyHealthHub

Empowering people with multiple chronic illnesses take control of their health

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UX/UI Design
Mobile App Design