CUROLOGY
Designing a routine-building experience that helped patients understand and choose non-Rx products alongside their prescription
+7% routine completion | +20% non-Rx products added
OVERVIEW
Product
Curology is a dermatology telehealth platform providing accessible prescription skincare for acne and other skin concerns.
Project
With the new launch of non-Rx Curology skincare products, patients now had to decide whether to add these products alongside the prescription their provider had created for them. Patients weren't required to add them, but the business wanted patients purchasing products through Curology rather than sourcing similar products elsewhere.
Role
Product Designer: Led end-to-end design process from research to final launch
Team
Product Management, Growth, Content Design, Legal, Engineering, and Research
Timeline
2 months
THE PROBLEM
Patients were being introduced to an entire product category, non-Rx skincare, that many didn't even know Curology offered. The business wanted patients choosing Curology's non-Rx products over sourcing similar products elsewhere, but patients needed to be able to opt in freely, not feel pushed.
My early assumption was that this was an information overload problem which meant too many new products were being introduced suddenly. Research showed the real problem went deeper than that.
RESEARCH
Understanding Our Patients
In partnership with a User Research Manager, I conducted remote moderated interviews and usability sessions with patients to understand how they navigated the routine-building experience. Through these interviews four themes emerged:
Theme 1: Product Understanding
"I'm still a little unfamiliar with skincare ingredients."
"I don't always know what each product actually does for my skin."
Theme 2: Trust & Credibility
"Were these actually recommended by my provider?"
"How do I know these recommendations are right for my skin?"
Theme 3: Pricing Transparency
"I wasn't sure what I would actually be charged."
"I kept looking for my final total before making decisions."
Theme 4: Decision Fatigue
"I would like more guidance when building routines because it feels a little overwhelming."
"There are a lot of choices to make."
Two of these mattered more than I expected. Trust & Credibility (was this really from my provider?) and Decision Fatigue (why do I need this at all if my provider already gave me a prescription?) compounded each other.
Layered together, they meant the real problem wasn't just "make this trustworthy." It was "explain why this exists at all," and do both without feeling pushy about a category the business needed patients to adopt.
CHALLENGES
Challenge #1: Building trust without overstating provider involvement
Providers and Legal teams pushed back on framing non-Rx suggestions as provider-recommended, since these products hadn't gone through the same individualized clinical review as the prescription product itself. Product team disagreed, the language tested better, and a stronger-converting version was a reasonable thing to want to ship.
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"Provider recommended" language: We tested "provider recommended" language against a version matched to the patient's skin type and concerns. "Provider recommended" performed better because it directly answered patients' skepticism. However, Legal and Clinical teams asked us to scrap it since it implied a level of individual provider review that wasn't actually happened. Product pushed to keep it, given testing results.
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Skin-concern-based framing, tied to intake data: Tied the product suggestion to something true, the patient's own intake answers and treatment goals, rather than implying a provider review.
My call: Ship the lower-performing copy language, but accurate version because we should try to be transparent to our patients. Even though skin-concern framing tested slightly worse, it was the version Legal and Clinical teams could stand behind and I didn't want to ship designs with language that outperformed on a claim we couldn't back up.
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Ruled out: The language, "Recommended by Your Provider", implied a level of individual provider review that wasn't actually happened.
Challenge #2: Personalizing suggestions without a full recommendation engine
Patients wanted non-Rx suggestions to feel personalized, the same way their prescription formula was. Engineering flagged true formula-level matching as too complex for the timeline of this project.
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Dynamic, formula-matched bundling: This direction would've mirrored how the prescription itself was personalized. It wasn't feasible because it was too large of a build for engineering.
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Rule-based tagging using existing intake data: Reuses skin-type and concern tags patients already provided at intake. This direction was a less lift for engineering
My Call: Ship the tag-based version for v1, and treat true dynamic matching as a future investment once the simpler version validated the concept.
DESIGN SOLUTIONS
Both challenges pointed to the same principle which was build trust and personalization on what was actually true, not on implied endorsements or systems we didn't have time to build. That shaped three shipped changes:
"Matched to Your Skin" Recommendations
Non-Rx suggestions reframed around skin concerns and treatment goals, not implied individual provider review.
Ingredient Education
Lightweight, inline education addressing the Product Understanding theme without interrupting the customization flow.
Transparent Pricing
Pricing surfaced intentionally throughout customization, addressing the Pricing Transparency theme.
IMPACT
Reframing recommendations around real skin data, rather than an unverified provider review gave patients a reason to trust the experience without overstating what had actually happened clinically. Combined with clearer ingredient education and upfront pricing, customization became something patients could move through with confidence instead of second-guessing.
+7%
Routine completion
More patients completed the customization flow
+20%
Non-Rx products added
More patients added non-Rx products to their routine
REFLECTION
The tension between Legal, Clinical, and Product teams was personally tough throughout this project. However, as a product designer, I should always try my best to advocate for the user.
This also reinforced how important it was to understand the actual problem before committing to a solution. Patients weren't simply asking for more information, they wanted information that felt relevant and connected to their actual skin treatment. One thing I'd want to revisit is the, "Why do I need this at all?", question that came up during the discovery phase. We addressed the trust half of the problem, but never directly tackled the necessity part, why a patient with an already-personalized prescription should still consider using non-Rx Curology products specifically. That's the natural next problem I probably would have liked to solve for.