Skincare Comparison Feature

for INCIDecoder

PROBLEM

How might we determine which skin products are safe for me and which are not?

SOLUTION

I created a multi-item comparison feature for mobile so that users could access plain-language product ingredient information for decision-making on the go.

ROLE

UX/UI Designer

Note: This project is not affiliated with INCIDecoder; this is a personal project for practice.

Multi-screen mockup of the skincare comparison feature

Background

INCIDecoder is an excellent free resource that makes information about skin product ingredients accessible. I recently experienced an eczema flare up after using some lip balm on a bike ride, and wanted to use INCIDecoder's wealth of easy-to-understand ingredient information to track down what was causing it. However, their current site limits comparisons to two products and arranges information awkwardly in the viewport.

Why this project?

This project tackled an interestingly complex challenge: presenting dense, text-heavy skincare ingredients in a way that feels digestible on a mobile screen. Comparing multiple products added another layer of difficulty—meaning the design had to balance just enough information with the flexibility for infinite comparisons, all within limited screen space. I didn't see any examples of this UX/UI challenge being solved yet, but it's a highly relevant scenario to many data-heavy industries like health tech.

I have a background in making complex, data-dense information intuitive and actionable. Skincare ingredients, with their long, technical names and nuanced classifications made this problem especially interesting. The goal was to create an experience where users could quickly scan, compare, and understand key differences—without feeling overwhelmed.

Problem Definition

User Journey Mapping

I mapped out a user journey from experiencing an outbreak due to a skincare product, to identifying the potential trigger using INCIDecoder.

User journey map from eczema flare-up to identifying trigger ingredient

I focused on the 2 areas where user frustration could be lessened:

Requirements

Narrowing down the solution space, I set out to create functionality that would let a user, on the go, determine what might be causing a reaction and what products would be safe for them in the future.

Platform: Mobile

Skin reactions and flare-ups don't wait for you to be seated at the computer. Often, new products are sampled in store or borrowed while on-the-go when a user doesn't have their regular product with them. A mobile-first function would allow users to respond quickly.

Comparison amount: Infinite

When identifying the cause of a skin reaction, having more data is better—users benefit from comparing as many products as possible. To ensure the design remains flexible and scalable, it makes sense to support an unlimited number of product comparisons.

Design Explorations

Table Comparison

Comparison of existing 2-product table view and a multi-product spreadsheet

The existing 2-product comparison view, and my spreadsheet for comparing multiple products at a time.

The most commonly used tool for comparison is a table. The grid structure makes scanning across multiple products very easy, and people are very familiar with how to digest information in a table. However, tables are a challenge on mobile:

  1. Limited Screen Space: Mobile screens are small, making it difficult to fit multiple columns without forcing users to zoom, scroll excessively, or lose context.
  2. Horizontal Scrolling Issues: Tables often require side-scrolling, which breaks the goal of visual comparison at a glance. It's also unfeasible if designing for unlimited comparisons, which would leave the user side-scrolling to infinity.
  3. Legibility Challenges: Skincare ingredient names are long, and squeezing them into table cells can lead to truncation, tiny fonts, or overwhelming walls of text.
  4. Touch Interaction Constraints: Tapping or selecting table elements can be tricky on mobile, leading to usability issues, especially for users with accessibility needs.

A matrix chart addresses some of these issues, but still requires theoretically infinite side scrolling for unlimited comparisons. However, I liked the idea of visual representations to reduce text-in-viewport, so I started thinking about data visualizations.

Ingredient Relation Visualization

I considered using a visualization to reduce cognitive load and orient the user on the overlaps between different products.

Venn diagram and UpSet plot data visualizations

Left: Venn diagrams become hard to parse after >4 items. Right: An UpSet data visualization is more effective at showing what is contained in each existing combination.

Initially, I thought this could be an effective way to give the user control in selecting exactly which overlap or exclusion they were interested in (e.g. "Show me which ingredients are unique in the product that triggered a reaction" or "Show me what's shared across all products I use").

However, I realized for the core problem of identifying safe skincare products, users typically don't care about partial overlaps (e.g., ingredients appearing in some but not all products). Instead, they focus on what's uniquely different or universally shared. That meant presenting a visualization creates more challenges than solutions:

  1. Space poorly allocated: A lot of space is used to show the partial overlaps, which are the least important pieces of information.
  2. Not easily digestible: These visualizations compress information quite efficiently, but are still not instantly intuitive.
  3. Not the end goal: A visualization is still only an intermediary to the user's end goal of identifying a particular ingredient or set of ingredients.

Thinking about the user's end goals helped me create an information hierarchy. That dictated how to allocate screen space, which led to my ultimate solution.

Results

Articulating the information hierarchy led me to my solution. I prioritized showing ingredients, and used a card-like layout to show which products shared the listed ingredient.

Information hierarchy diagram for the comparison feature

Ingredients were placed in an accordion that expanded into a card with more details about each ingredient. I also added a backdrop that showed thumbnails of the products being compared. The backdrop slides down to reveal the product details, and gives the user an option to edit the comparison.

Collapsible accordion

Shared ingredients show information as a card; further details hidden until expanded. Ingredients organized in order of priority in information hierarchy.

Comparison backdrop

Products included in the comparison are visible as thumbnails. The backdrop expands into an editable detailed view when dragged down.

Comparison flow step 1 Comparison flow step 2 Comparison flow step 3

A flow for adding products to the comparison tray. Previously, there was no indication for what had been already selected for comparison.

Reflections

This was a very interesting technical challenge! I haven't seen many great solutions for displaying detailed data on mobile. I suspect it's because most data-heavy platforms assume users are on desktop. But with younger generations leaning mobile-first—even for tasks like data wrangling and multi-page forms—we're likely to see more products adapt, bringing high-density data to mobile in smarter ways.

Working on this project made me consider several things:

  • With the rise of AI agents, the future may no longer have as much need for platform- and data-specific designs. Instead, it's much easier to design a generic chat or voice interface that works across many types of problems. Users might just ask, "I'm okay with these skincare products, and this one triggered my eczema. What ingredients should I avoid in the future?"
  • Canonical data visualization is often assumed to be a browser-first user experience. There is so much room to consider mobile-first versions of common data visualizations, or even create completely new types of visualization.
  • As a follow up project, I think it would be helpful to build out functionality to keep a "safe" list of products, or an "avoid" list of ingredients. New potential skincare products could be vetted very quickly and users could have a more personalized experience.

I hope to work with the folks at INCIDecoder to implement this onto their site!