Oral-B Connected Health

Overview

Oral-B Connect is a service for people who want to know that their oral care routine is working.
Unlike other toothbrushes that need you to bring your phone into the bathroom to learn how often or how well you brush, Oral-B Connect makes it easy to stay on top of your routine with encouraging reports by delivering them to you when you want them, with no extra effort.

In 2018 I led the UX research and design of the data product and messaging for pilot innovation program at P&G called Oral-B Connect. It uses a wifi connected charger for the toothbrush to effortlessly track users brushing data to let them see how well they are really doing at taking care of their teeth.

We learned that most of us brushing our teeth suffer from illusory superiority. A common condition with tasks we do frequently, but rarely receive useful feedback on. In the same way that most people think they are better than average drivers, 70% of people think they are brushing as often and as long as their dentist recommends. When they see the data, we see their habits change for the better. The results of this project changed the way the business approached power oral care innovation, integrating data capture and sharing as a core value component.

Goals

• Use the connect IoT brush platform data to improve user oral health habits with push notifications and messages.

• Use the 1 on 1 relationship through the data messaging to drive purchase of oral care products. (ie-brush head refills)

• Do it in a way that builds trust in the brand and product, and does not annoy users with ads for things they don’t want.

Outcome

• 30% CTR on the brush head refill notification represented a 4x increase in repurchase frequency and the first time Oral-B had been able to offer it directly to consumers.

• Oral-B Guide, the minimum viable product (MVP) version of the connected brush launched in 2019 and was Oral-B’s first IoT healthcare product. The data messaging feature and post purchase user journey map continues to be a source of truth and value creation for the product team.

• In 2022, the scale version of the connected brush, iO10 launched in Germany winning a German Design Award.

• In 2023, brush head refill notifications and subscriptions launched on the global Oral-B app. This marks a dramatic shift from the traditional interruptive ads Oral-B has run on TV and Facebook, to including opt-in, relationship based, product marketing.
  

Team & process

The team working on the overall product was large. For this messaging data feature I led UX Design and UI Implementation work. I collaborated with the Brand Director, Design Director and Product Manager to define product requirements. I worked with a UX researcher and an external copywriter to develop the messaging and data alongside the overall app experience.

• Wizard of Oz test

• User Journey Map

• Qualitative interviews from testers

• Habit Changing Framework

• Behavioral Data from User base

Wizard of Oz Test
Does anyone care? Before we invested the time and money to build this data product we did a simple manual version to see if our users would find this type of information useful. We recruited 20 folks and manually extracted their brushing data from their power brushes at the end of the week. I then calculated and texted them a weekly report on the amount of time they brushed, how often they brushed and a small improvement goal for the next week. Even though the process was clunky we saw a 50% gain in overall time spent brushing after just two notifications. We continued to use the manual messaging in small scale tests to refine what kinds of information users liked and how often they liked to receive it without having to make complicated dev changes.

Journey Map: Visualizing the User Experience over time
In order the change the way we thought about our user who in we would only interact with through a retailer traditionally we started a long iterative process of mapping their experience through the first three months of owning a power brush. I created the first map as a prototype to drive a discussion about how we were prioritizing feature development. In this first draft one of the main points was the reason the weekly messages are so important since the novelty enjoyment of brushing decreases after about 2 weeks.

Hooked Habit Change Theory
Using the Trigger, Action, Varaible Reward and Investment theory from Nir Eyals book, Hooked. Our hypothesis was we could create engaging content out of your own brushing data. We broke down the message like this:

• Trigger: Push notification at an expected time (like apple screen time)

• Action: Open notification

• Reward: See new information about yourself and your habits

• Invest: Spend a little time looking at what you could do to be a little better

Onboarding Content Strategy
In order the change the way we thought about our user who in we would only interact with through a retailer traditionally we started a long iterative process of mapping their experience through the first three months of owning a power brush. I created the first map as a prototype to drive a discussion about how we were prioritizing feature development. In this first draft one of the main points was the reason the weekly messages are so important since the novelty enjoyment of brushing decreases after about 2 weeks.

Opt-in to Simple Solutions
Out of the process of testing messages with users and listening to their response, we discovered that instead of interrupting them with an ad, we could ask them if they were interested in a solution to a problem they had already indicated they were concerned about. Most of our testers already knew they ought to replace their brush head, but they weren’t going to remember to do it without som prompting. This inspired us to opt in to a reminder. Then when the time came to remind them about the refill it was already a service they had asked for. We could then offer to ship them direct or they could change with one they already had.