UX/Product Design
Product Discovery Reimagined:
A UX Approach to Education,
Engagement & Insight
COMPANY
L'Oréal
ROLE
Digital Product Designer
Personalized Product Discovery in Premium Salons
Empowering customers to find the right hair care solutions through interactive experiences and real-time insights
As part of a digital innovation initiative in L’Oréal Professional premium salons, I designed an interactive product discovery experience using a digital table. The experience allowed users to explore product details, watch how-to videos, and complete a personalized hair care quiz via QR code. The backend of the quiz captured real-time user insights, which I analyzed daily to identify key hair concerns and guide marketing and sales strategy. This case study explores how physical retail touchpoints can deliver personalized, data-driven experiences in a salon setting.
Problem Discovery
Premium L’Oréal Professional salons offer a curated selection of high-end haircare products, but the in-salon customer journey was missing a digital layer that could guide users through informed product discovery. Customers were often unsure about which products were right for their specific hair needs, leading to either decision paralysis or reliance on verbal staff recommendations that were hard to remember post-visit.
At the same time, the business lacked structured insight into the real-time concerns and priorities of salon clients — data that could directly inform forecasting, marketing, and inventory strategies.
As a designer deeply involved in the salon environment, I initiated a project to bridge this gap by creating a digital-first solution that would:
Educate customers about the product range through interactive experiences,
Offer personalized recommendations tailored to real concerns, and
Feed customer insights back to the business in a structured, scalable way.
User & Business Goals
User Goals
Through my research and firsthand observation in the salon, I identified key user needs that shaped the experience:
Clarity: Customers wanted to understand the purpose and correct use of each product in a simple, engaging way.
Confidence: Users needed help selecting products that matched their specific hair type and concerns.
Convenience: They appreciated quick, touchless access to product information without relying solely on staff.
Personalization: Many desired a guided routine — not just individual products — tailored to their hair goals.
Business Goals
From the brand and salon perspective, the interactive experience had to do more than educate, it needed to drive real business value. I aligned my solution with these objectives:
Increase product engagement: Encourage customers to interact with a broader product line through digital education.
Boost conversion: Help stylists recommend and sell full routines rather than single items.
Collect real-time insights: Use a digital quiz to gather anonymized data on customer needs and trends.
Support marketing strategy: Share quiz results with sales and marketing teams to inform targeted campaigns and product forecasting.
Research & Insights
Since I was embedded in the salon environment and frequently interacted with customers and staff, I was able to collect continuous, informal research through observation, interviews, and feedback loops. This direct, in-context exposure helped me uncover key patterns in user behavior and pain points.
Key Insights:
Customers were curious but hesitant. Many guests picked up products but often put them back quickly, unsure of their relevance or how to use them.
Verbal guidance was often forgotten. Stylists gave strong recommendations, but customers struggled to recall product names, steps, or combinations after leaving.
Product discovery lacked interactivity. There was no intuitive way to self-explore the product line or understand the benefits of a full routine.
Salons had no clear data on demand. There was no system in place to capture which hair concerns (e.g. dryness, color care, volume) were most common making it harder to align marketing and inventory with real customer needs.
These insights revealed an opportunity to create a digital, self-service experience that would:
Guide customers through product discovery,
Deliver personalized results,
And provide anonymized, aggregated data for business decisions.
Solution Design
Bridging the gap between salon curiosity and product confidence.
From my observations, I knew that users needed more than a shelf of products they needed education, guidance, and personalization in a way that felt engaging, not overwhelming. At the same time, the business needed data-driven insights to align marketing and sales efforts with real user needs.Key Insights:
Design Goals
I translated the user insights into 4 clear design objectives:
Educate with Ease: Make product benefits and usage instructions accessible at a glance even without a stylist.
Enable Self-Discovery: Help users independently explore products tailored to their hair concerns.
Personalize the Experience: Recommend a full haircare routine through a quick, smart quiz.
Feed Business Insights: Capture anonymous user concerns to support sales forecasting and targeted marketing.
To bring this solution to life, I documented the full experience using a combination of:
A walkthrough video of the product in use
3D visualizations to convey the design setup and flow
Real salon photos showing how customers interact with the table
These assets clearly communicate how users engage with the product, how the technology enhances the in-salon journey, and how it supports education, personalization, and sales alignment.
1. Product Demo Video
This short video captures the full user journey with the interactive table. From product exploration to personalized recommendations via a QR-based hair quiz, the flow is simple, engaging, and educative. It demonstrates how users naturally interact with the digital system and how the experience bridges physical products with personalized digital tools.
2. 3D Visualizations
The 3D visuals simulate how the table fits into a premium salon environment. I created them to clearly communicate the positioning of products, screen feedback, lighting considerations, and user ergonomics. These renders helped align stakeholders on the setup before deployment and ensured a consistent branded experience.
3. Real-World Photos
These photos were taken during the in-salon implementation phase. They highlight how real users interact with the system from picking up products to engaging with the digital screen. Observing these interactions in context helped validate the design decisions and inspired iterative improvements to enhance usability and engagement.