Natrèceutique is an all-natural beauty brand.

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The challenge was to build an elegant yet trustworthy brand for Cyberderm, an Ottawa-based company selling sunscreens trusted by physicians. Similar to their parent company, Natrèceutique's product lines understand the pharmaceutical world, yet they celebrate the concepts of holistic and preventative care embraced by the natural beauty industry.

Designed at

Andréa Crofts Studio

Role

Designer & Illustrator

Services

Identity, Packaging & Print

Find them at

Terra 20, Free People (coming soon)

The challenge: design a HomeKit app in three weeks

We were tasked with designing an app in a sliver of time, using a framework we had never touched prior to this project. As the sole designer on the project, I chose to ride closely alongside Apple's existing Human Interface Guidelines. I made this decision early on, after becoming intimately aware of the project's time constraints. This way, I could  focus more on nailing down functionality and features, rather than finessing and fussing over a custom design system.

I set my ego on the shelf, and rolled up my sleeves. Here's how our team got started...

First order of business...

Understand the structure of a basic HomeKit app, and study its' implementation in other apps.

We set up a test application and recorded the process of pairing Nanoleaf's bulbs with their wireless hub using the test app. We also looked at current competitors in the space, from Philips Hue to Lutron as well as other connected home products like the Nest thermostat and Ecobee.

From these explorations, we were able to ask ourselves tough questions about which features were truly essential for our MVP. Once we knew what we were up against, we prioritized two sections of the app: onboarding and single bulb controls.

A focus on pairing hardware with software.

We knew that the user's first time using the product (hereby referred to as "onboarding") would be important, but we didn't know how important.

Although we focused heavily on this user flow in the design process, it was re-prioritized in the engineering phase. Many aspects of it never saw the light of day in the first release due to time restraints. Nanoleaf has since injected this thinking into their current app, to much success. 

“Adding lights is one of the small points where the app lacks polish. Regardless, Nanoleaf gets the important stuff right.”

Ry Crist, CNET