SHARPER SENSE
INTRODUCING APPROACHABLE NEUROSCIENCE
Duration: 3 Weeks
Deliverables: Hi-Fi Prototype, Design System, Design Pitch
Team: Kristy Wong & Kristin Kerney – UX Research, Strategy, Design
Tools: 
DESIGNING FOR NEURAL ENGINEERS
Sharper Sense is a biotech company that has developed a safe method for enhancing human sensory processing (vision, touch, and hearing). Their solution is simple. It’s an adhesive patch that is worn on the neck. The patch stimulates a nerve through the skin, which indirectly enhances sensory processing in the brain through a process called neuromodulation.
Sounds like an ideal solution, but one might wonder… How does a patch on my neck influence activity in my brain?
This was Sharper Sense’s biggest challenge. They needed a way to bring to life the complex hard science and research behind their product in a way that was meaningful and exciting to investors and future users.
UNDERSTANDING BUSINESS NEEDS
In our initial meeting with Sharper Sense, it was clear that the product was backed by legitimate science. Founders, Charlie and Qi, are PhDs with backgrounds in biomedical and electrical engineering, neuroscience, and medical product development.
Being immersed in the science, Charlie and Qi’s challenge was to zoom out and articulate Sharper Sense’s benefits, use cases, and technology in a way that consumers could easily understand.
The existing site includes large walls of science-heavy text, stock photos, and no brand identity.
EXISTING SITE
SIMPLIFYING THE BIOTECH PITCH
A key component of a successful biotech pitch is linking the product to the user needs, validating market demand.
Sharper Sense’s current website, lacking concise structure and brand strategy, wasn’t attracting venture capital investment. Our goal was to design a website with a consumer-driven, science-focused brand identity.
Sharper Sense’s secondary challenge was their range of target markets so we set out to identify more specific target users so that we could design a more tailored solution.
PLANNING OUR 3 WEEK DESIGN SPRINT
To allocate our time wisely, we established a project plan for our 3-week design sprint. The plan outlined the existing business challenges, KPIs, and design opportunities highlighted above to ensure we maintained focus on deliverables that would be most beneficial to Sharper Sense.
RESEARCH & UNDERSTAND
SURVEYING THE ENVIRONMENT
Before conducting user research, we looked to understand the science and the existing environment for neuromodulation treatments. We conducted a literature review and market analysis to assess industry potential, competitive landscape, and scientific validity.
Our research indicated a growing need for safe neuromodulation solutions in response to enhanced understanding and increased diagnoses of neurological disorders as well as growing societal pressure around efficiency.
UNDERSTANDING OUR USERS
To better understand our users, we interviewed 12 individuals across Sharper Sense’s various target markets. Since the product would be used in both Clinical and Performance Enhancement applications, we interviewed individuals who had Traumatic Brain Injury, age-related sensory deficits, ADHD as well as College Athletes, E-Sports Gamers, and Professional Athletes. We created an affinity map to compile and organize our research findings. The following 4 takeaways were the most prevalent.
SYNTHESIZE & DEFINE
NARROWING OUR USER FOCUS
Sharper Sense was having trouble narrowing their focus across multiple target markets, which lead to a disjointed and disorganized product strategy. To create more of a tailored and effective solution, we leveraged our research takeaways to help us identify 2 specific user types that we could design for.
LAUREN – SUPERMOM
Lauren is a mom who is working from home with a ton on her plate. She has an infant, a new puppy, and a nagging boss. Lauren was diagnosed with ADHD at 10 years old, but now worries about the long-term effects Adderall will have on her physical and mental health.
THE PROBLEM: Lauren’s doctor has suggested multiple alternatives including the Sharper Sense patch, but Lauren is overwhelmed with options. She needs a way to quickly assess whether these solutions are effective and safe for her.
KARL – STUDENT ATHLETE
Karl is a D1 volleyball player juggling academics, sports, and a busy social life. He’s used pre-workout supplements to help him feel more alert and in the zone during games. These performance enhancers work well, but he hates feeling jittery and being up all night after a game. Karl knows very little about how these products work. He’s concerned about the ingredients he’s ingesting and their potential long-term impacts on his health.
THE PROBLEM: Karl needs an easier way to understand performance enhancement alternatives, how they work, and they impacts his body so that he can avoid treatments that impact him negatively.
IDEATE
SCOPING THE COMPETITION
As we considered our users needs, we know we had to create a website that helped our users with their questions, concerns, and goals regarding Sharper Sense. We started our ideation phase by exploring how other neuromodulation sites presented complex information, explained product value, and instilled trust in users.
MAPPING OUT THE SOLUTION
Leveraging our research takeaways and content strategy exploration, we created a site map and content map to piece together and organize site components that would be critical to designing an effective digital solution for our users.
We knew that our users had a wide rang of questions from product validity and functionality to side-effects and safety. In order to address all of these needs, we provided a high-level organized view of site contents on the home page and then linked to more in-depth information that suited individual needs.
SITE MAP
CONTENT MAP
BLUEPRINTS FOR THE SITE
Once we had a solid idea of the content that needed to be represented, we started to design low-fidelity wireframes to establish a more in-depth content strategy. A color-blocking approach enabled us to exhibit the various categories of information available on our site while providin clear access points and easy navigation to more detailed information.
PROTOTYPE & TEST
CREATING A BRAND IDENTITY
We gathered user feedback on our initial wireframes and decide that the general layout was easy to navigate, but that it was hard to get an idea of what the branding would feel like due to the lack of color and imagery. We decided to leverage imagery that explained the product while creating a more cohesive and professional aesthetic across the site. First we selected a color scheme that would provide more contrast and help to distinguish how contents were categorized within our existing color-block layout.
It was a challenge to find existing professional illustrations or stock photos that could be used to explain the specific science behind Sharper Sense so we decided to create our own illustrations, diagrams, and accents while selecting photos that matched with our overall color scheme.
BRINGING OUR DESIGNS TO LIFE
Once we had a better sense of the color scheme and visuals to be included in the website, we were able to to piece together the existing layout and content from our lo-fidelity wireframes in a way the brought them to life. We created hi-fidelity wireframes of our Home, Product, Science, Contact Us, Team, FAQ and Press Pages. We then created a clickable prototype to test the functionality of our solution.
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