Project Overview
The free Sun Effects Booth App aims to prevent skin cancer by simulating the potential effects of sun exposure on the face.
Sun Effects is simple, fun and engaging. The user completes a quiz and uploads a photo. The App augments the photo, showing how they could look in the future. Users are encouraged to re-use the App to see if they can change the outcome by changing their behaviour.
The design of Sun Effects Booth is intuitive and clever. It uses a creative approach targeting young people’s - vanity by highlighting the sun’s potential damaging effects.
Project Commissioner
Queensland Department of Health
Project Creator
Team
The Preventive Health Unit, Queensland Department of Health worked with Mettro Digital Agency who specialise in creating digital products such as websites, campaigns, digital publishing, animation, video and mobile.
The Preventive Health Unit, Queensland Department of Health collaborated with Mettro Digital Agency to bring together skin cancer prevention content knowledge with high quality contemporary communication, strategy, digital design and development skill expertise.
The Mettro team comprised:
Creative Director
Raeleen Robertson
Technical Director
Alistair Cook
Project Manager
Matthew Radford
Designer and User Interface
Gavan Michael
User Interface and iOS Development
Lachlan Nutall
Project Brief
Given that Queensland is the skin cancer capital of the world, the Queensland Department of Health engaged Mettro Digital Agency, to create a product that would engage young people to consider sun safety and make behaviour changes to protect themselves from the sun’s ultraviolet radiation.
The Sun Effects Booth App was based on qualitative research that found young people are indifferent to sun safety messages. A creative solution to the age-old problem of getting through to young people was needed.
In response to this, the interactive Sun Effects Booth was created. The great appeal of the app is that users can upload a photo and see in an instant the possible long-term effects of sun exposure – a window into the future, if they don’t look after their skin in the sun.
To personalise the key message and increase its impact, the App was designed to reveal the sun’s effect on the users themselves rather than to show other people’s skin damage. The combination of the user’s face, their current behaviour and geo-located UV index, generates a customised response. Photo-augmentation tools were incorporated into the App to highlight the ageing effects of the sun and challenge the audience’s appearance-led motivations to sunbake. The directness of the approach provides the individual with the cut-through answer to the question “But how does this affect me?”! The approach also allows the individual to find out how the decisions they make today could affect the way they look in the future.
Project Need
The Sun Effects Booth App went live on 2nd August, 2012. Now approximately 12 months on, there have been over 12,800 individual downloads recorded by iTunes. In addition there was significant media activity and online reviews in relation to the App.
The design of the App concentrates on the effectiveness of the interface. The user is led on a step-by-stop journey, answering questions and being educated at the same time.
Whilst the user-interface is simple, the design and approach to technology is innovative.
Many individual layers contribute to the overall effect, with separate components for wrinkles, tan, freckles etc, each applied with a blend mode appropriate to the effect. Each layer is generated randomly from a pool of options and is modified based on the user's skin damage "score". The randomised layer selection ensures each user obtains a unique end result each time they run the app even if their "score" is identical.
A variable driven distortion map is created and is applied over the user's facial features. This distortion "smearing" creates the effect of saggy jowls, narrowing of the eyes, droopy crows feet and other effects consistent with ageing skin.
The distortion engine was specifically developed in a way that can be effortlessly ported to a web service, allowing for a cross platform execution in the future (online or Android). In addition, all core functionality can be achieved without a network connection. The result is considerably more flexible, accurate and sophisticated than alternative products.
User Experience
The Sun Effects Booth is successful because of the excellence and simplicity of the user-experience. The user is taken on a ‘journey of revelation’ that requires no detailed instruction. The calls-to-action are clear and the design is uncluttered, ensuring the user stays engaged.
The user simply taps ‘Predict your skin’s future’ and answers the quiz. Once their altered face is revealed, the user can swipe back and forth to see a before and after effect. The user will not see the identical result from multiple tries.
Mettro Digital Agency is highly experienced in creating exceptional user interfaces and their approach was “user first – technology second”. The App was custom-made and the interface was based on knowledge of how a user navigates and thinks.
This is a project where design and the right technology successfully meshed – the output is a product that directly communicates with the audience in a meaningful way.
While there are sun safety applications on the market for commercial or entertainment use, the Sun Effects Booth is one of the only, if not the only, App designed to engage the community for behaviour change on this issue.
The App was tested exhaustively and informed by experts as well as focus groups to ensure the concept and user-experience was effective.
Project Marketing
In terms of sun safety – or any health promotion strategy – the challenge is to understand the technology and its application to create a tailored product that directly communicates and engages with the target audience in a meaningful way.
The campaign was marketed through media releases, with multiple articles in the press and with segments on national TV and radio. The App has become an important component of the Queensland Government's ongoing sun safety efforts and is promoted as part of all healthy lifestyle initiatives targeting young people.
Tags
Medical
This category relates to applications that provide or promote a medical service or information.
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