MAC Trends

MAC Makeup Trends (mobile only) is using AI and machine learning across multiple third-party sources (i.e. social media, editorials, Google searches, etc.) to match makeup trends to brand products and consumer intent. The project is to use data-driven trend reports and monthly intelligence reports to curate trends to consumers without the guesswork.

My Role

Designed the Experience: I led the design in March 2019, collaborated with the engineering team, and launched it in June 2019.

Implemented the Feature to Another ELC Brand: After relaunching the MAC trends experience and receiving a positive conversion rate, we pitched the concept to Clinique in October 2019 and launched skincare trends on Clinique.com in June 2020.

Trends 2.0 (Proposed New Trends Ideas to MAC Cosmetics): Based on the trends knowledge I learned from my research, users, and the data we collected from these two trends experience, I was able to push the trends concept even further, and pitched other trends ideas to MAC Cosmetics and received very good feedback from them. The new trends idea will launch on the MAC cosmetics redesign website.

To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have obfuscated confidential information in this case study. The information in this case study is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of ELC online.

The Challenge

Beauty trends are popular topics in conversations between friends, online, and on social media. However, it’s hard to know which trends are the hottest trends because they are all over the places, such as different social media, editorial platform, and magazines. Our consumers wants to follow the top trends but they dont know where to look these top trends, how to get inspiration and what products to finish the trends.

What if we provide our consumers the most popular online beauty trends with products and inspiration associated? Could that experience save our consumer’s time and energy to looking for trends?

To help solve the problem, we were curious about where consumers discover beauty trends? Do consumers like to stay on top of beauty trends? How do consumers shop for beauty trends?

High-Level Goals

• To understand the consumer shopping journey of beauty trends

• To seek new beauty trend opportunities for ELC brands

User Research Plan & Interview

Following the research plan, we conducted user interviews. We interviewed 8 users. They are females who like beauty and fashion. Focus groups are Gen Z and Millennials between 18-35 years old in the US.

We found:

• Consumers between the ages of 18-24 prefer beauty looks that are bold and colorful. Following beauty trends are experimental, allowing them to build makeup skills, and encouraging them to try new makeup styles.

• Consumers between the ages of 25-35 prefer looks that are natural, simple and clean. For them, they feel they have already established a look that fits their personal style and represents themselves, so they don’t deviate from their regular look too much. They prefer trying something new on special occasions.

• Beauty trends deviate from traditionally established beauty conventions. They are eye-catching, popular on social media, and have a contemporary feel.

• Consumers are most likely to follow a beauty trend and shop for a look/product if the trend is relevant to her skin tone and style.

• Top 3 sources to discover trends

  • Instagram 

  • Influencers and celebrities

  • Youtube

Competitive Research

After we summarized the insights from consumers, we started to do competitive research to see how competitors are doing makeup trends on their website.

We found:

Beauty trends on competitors’ websites can be grouped into 3 categories:

1. Brands such as Into the Gloss, L'Oréal, Makeup Forever, etc. create content to drive trends.

2. Brands such as Fenty Beauty, MAC, and Haus use Influencers and celebrities to drive trends.

3. Brands place trends throughout the site to create awareness in various ways, such as Bobbi Brown, MAC, etc.

The Opportunity We Found

After we reviewed users’ trends needs and what beauty brands were providing to consumers, we found beauty brands like to create their own trendy looks. But consumers are looking for trends that are popular on online and social media, relevant to her, and fit her style.

How may we optimize the current consumer journey of shopping for beauty trends?

But we were facing an issue to solve:

How do we know what are the top trends online?

After we shared the findings and questions with the team, our strategic partnership team started to look if there were any tech vendors that could potentially help us better predict trends online. We interviewed a few tech relevant vendors. They showed us their capabilities. We found Trendalytics.

The Tech Behind

Trendalytics leverages signals in Google Trends, social media, and ecommerce market data to predict which trends are emerging and which have reached their peak. Trendalytics can help use data-driven trend reports and monthly intelligence reports to curate trends to consumers without guesswork. Trendalyttic API defines products for a trendy look and translates the products to a brand SKU. Based on the SKUS, we create an experience for consumers to inform them of trends on our brand.com websites.

The Approach

After we found the tech vendor, I started to create user flows and mockups for the trends features, and we decided to have a pilot on MACCosmetics.com since beauty trends is one of MAC’s strengths.

Wireframing the Solution

Based on the user flow discussed with the team, I quickly mocked up some basic wireframes to gather feedback from Product, Engineering, and users on the overall layout and structure.

The MVP is not Always Perfect

The pilot was launched on MACcosmetics.com, but we didn’t receive too much traffic in the feature. The team was curious and wanted know why. So we audited the experience.

Audit the experience & Iteration

I conducted user testing to audit the usability issues. Based on evaluating the flow, we found the main usability issue for the MAC trends pilot was a disconnected user experience. In order to optimize user flow to make it smooth and seamless and allow our consumers to easily shop trends and be inspired by User-generated content (UGC), we made some UX changes for MAC trends.

What we updated:

1. Images help visualize beauty trends

To increase consumer’s interest and awareness, we recommend moving “Trendspotting” to the top of the search results page.

2. Add to bag directly

With the design update, consumers can directly add products to their bag from the trend search results page instead of going to the single product page (SPP).

3. Add shade names to trend results

Consumers are able to see the product shade names on the trend search results page.

4. Show products by category

Organize search results by showing products with their corresponding category label. Consumers can see one recommended product in each category.

5. Remove filter

With limited products, Trends doesn’t need a filter for results.

6. Remove ‘Complete the Look’

Based on our research, few consumers like to add all products to complete a look. We suggested removing this content to place focus on the trends product recommendations.

Final Design

The feedback was well-received from the team. I provided the second round of design to the dev team to make the updates based on the audit report.

The Impact

The feature was relaunched in June 2019 as a pilot. We split the traffic with the other search Eng from 20/80, 50/50, to 80/20. The overall results we received: the average time spent on the trends feature increased 40 seconds, the page visits increased by 2 minutes, and 8 dollars increased on the average order compared to before without the trends feature on the search dropdown.