Communicating the dangers of tanning beds for UCSF
Sexual minority men (SMM) are 6X more likely to use indoor tanning beds than heterosexual men and nearly three times as likely to be diagnosed with skin cancer. Partnering with a dermatology lab at University of California San Francisco (UCSF), we set out to understand attitudes around indoor tanning and develop intervention concepts.
DURATION
6 weeks
TEAM
Andrew Evans
MY ROLES
Design research, concept design
Our client was interested in exploring public health campaigns, like this concept for a public awareness initiative
PROBLEM
A research lab at UCSF wanted to explore how to reduce the incidence of indoor tanning use among sexual minority men (SMM) via a public health initiative.
RESEARCH
I worked with a design lead to conduct 15 interviews with stakeholders and end users (including frequent tanners, never tanners, partners of tanners, salon owners, and 1 Instagram star). We conducted observational research in tanning salons in SF and NYC and analogous research on public health initiatives.
KEY INSIGHTS
Tan is attractive, but tanning is not. We had assumed that the experience of tanning was part of its draw, but heard from most interviewees that the opposite was true. From the sweat, to the “burning” smell, to feeling guilty about “cheating” to look more attractive, tanning beds were typically viewed as an unpleasant means to an end:
“When I leave a tanning salon, it feels like walking out of a McDonald’s”
An impossible standard. Many of the men we spoke to felt judged against a narrow, difficult to achieve standard of beauty. For them, tanning was an easy way to meet an otherwise impossible standard:
“If I can’t have super toned muscles, at least I can have tanned skin”
A distant threat. While most of the SMM we talked to saw HIV/AIDS as an important public health issue, few felt that skin cancer was relevant to the gay or queer community, if preventable at all by behavior alone.
OUTCOME
We led a culminating workshop with members of the research lab, synthesized design principles, and proposed opportunity areas for future development. Using this work, our client went on to secure funding to develop and test a behavior change initiative.
We visited salons in SF and NYC to understand the experience of using indoor tanning beds
We used a variety of card sort activities during our interviews. In this photo, an interview subject ranks various attributes in order of how important they are to feeling confident