Capturing Emotion in a Bottle.
YouScent is an AI-powered platform that translates personal memories into custom fragrances. A UX journey bridging the gap between digital interaction and sensory reality.
"Finally, a system that understands intent, not just arbitrary chemistry attributes."
The friction of sensory translation in e-commerce.
Modern fragrance commerce is broken. We buy scents based on external visual branding, expensive celebrity endorsements, or static profiles rather than olfactory truth.
Traditional scent discovery quizzes yield a 60% abandonment rate. The cause is a major translation void: users cannot map qualitative personal memories or desired feelings to quantitative chemical note descriptions (such as chypre, aldehydes, or vetiver).
YouScent was developed to bridge this gap. We conceptualized an AI-powered translation engine that allows users to express their identity in natural, personal language, mapping stories directly to structured fragrance compositions.
Target Archetypes & Journey Gaps.
Layla, 27
Freelance Photographer · The Poet"Every fragrance quiz asks me to pick between 'floral' and 'woody.' That's not how I think. I think about rain on a Thursday morning in November."
Goals
- Find a scent honoring memory without being trapped.
- Experience a process that understands story, not just data.
Frustrations
- Sees traditional note descriptors as dry and elitist.
- Anxious about losing ancestral olfactory connections.
User Journey Map (Traditional, Pre-YouScent)
Deconstructing the Olfactory Relationship.
To build a meaningful translation layer, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 participants across four curated archetypes.
User Segments & Criteria
| Segment | Profile | Recruitment Criteria |
|---|---|---|
| Scent Enthusiasts | Fragrance collectors, community members | Owns 10+ bottles, follows communities |
| Emotional Seekers | Mood/feeling-oriented selectors | Selects products based on emotion, wellness |
| Identity Crafters | Curators of meticulous personal brand | High value on personal presentation |
| Gift Givers | Value the story over the generic object | History of buying deeply personal gifts |
Core Interview Protocol Questions
"People seeking a truly personalized scent are trapped between their intangible memories and the gatekept language of fragrance chemistry, turning what should be an intimate emotional journey into an anxious transaction of guesswork."
Analysis of the Competitive Void.
| Competitor | Primary Focus | Core Weakness |
The YouScent Gap
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
W
Waft
|
Custom Notes Building | Requires heavy ingredient literacy. Assumes users know what notes pair well. | Removes all ingredient prerequisites completely. |
|
S
Scentbird
|
Catalog Subscriptions | Not unique. Merely matches users to existing, widely available designer fragrances. | Generates a brand new, unique formula 1-of-1. |
|
W
Wikiparfum
|
Analytical Mapping | Purely objective database. No emotional context or personal narrative mapping. | Uses subjective memories as raw input data. |
|
P
Philyra (Puig)
|
AI B2B Engine | Optimizes formulas for broad market trends, not individual consumer personalization. | Direct-to-consumer personalized AI formulation. |
The Memory · Personality · Emotion (MPE) Model.
Memory Path
Top NotesCaptures autobiographical details to form the lightest, most volatile top notes.
Personality Pulse
Heart NotesCaptures active self-concept through archetypes, establishing the enduring heart.
Emotional Echo
Base NotesTranslates selected state anchors into the heavy, fixative base notes.
Bridging Arbitrary Knowledge to Meaningful UX
How YouScent replaces dense perfumery terms with cognitive mental models.
Top, Heart, Base Notes
Users don't understand evaporation rates or note lifespan.
"Initial hook, Core narrative, Lingering echo"
Mapped directly to memory, personality, and emotions respectively.
Sillage
Exclusionary French jargon for fragrance trail.
"Volume of Presence"
Visualized on a spatial scale from Intimate to Radiant.
Oud, Vetiver, Aldehydes
Exotic chemical or botanical terms with no inherent meaning.
"Smoky Wood", "Warm Earth", "Fresh Air"
Text inputs translate user descriptions directly to ingredients.
EDP vs EDT
Confusing acronyms defining alcohol concentration.
"Impact Slider"
Integrated into a single spatial presence controller.
Positioning the Opportunity
By mapping competitors against their input type (emotional narratives vs. technical ingredients) and output style (curated catalog matches vs. generated unique molecules), we isolated YouScent's unique value proposition.
YouScent occupies the only quadrant combining emotional inputs with generated unique formulations. Users do not need to choose notes; their story operates as the formula blueprint.
Early Ideation, Wireframes & Usability Testing.
UX Process · Step 1: Ideation
Mapping the emotional journey. Brainstorming how users translate abstract memories into tangible scent profiles.
Conceptualizing the Journey
Before touching any interfaces, we needed to map out the psychological journey. How does a user translate a distant memory into a tangible, physical fragrance profile without knowing the names of any ingredients?
We used loose sketching to outline this emotional translation path, which eventually evolved into the core MPE framework.
Rapid Prototyping
Translating abstract concepts into physical screen real estate using low-fidelity paper wireframes.
Sketching
Initial paper sketches outlining the core flow.
Layouts
Exploring UI layouts and feature placements.
Interactions
Drafting interaction models for the wizard.
Logic
Finalizing overall screen progression logic.
Step 03: Validation
Testing the structural logic. Rapid wireframing allowed us to validate the information architecture and interaction flow of the creation wizard early on.
Usability Observations
We conducted iterative testing sessions to observe behavioral friction points in real-time as users navigated the prototype wizard.
Session 01
Participant interacts with the prototype directly.
Session 02
Observing user friction points during the wizard.
Session 03
Gathering behavioral observations on the revised flow.
Onboarding
Establish emotional safety, introducing the MPE translation system simply.
Creation Wizard
Tacit sensory capture using emotional anchors, personal stories, and volume metrics.
AI Formulation
A transparent matching cycle detailing *why* raw ingredients represent the text stories.
Formula Result
Custom presentation of the scent profile, with control to edit weights before buying.
Shifting the Mental Model.
End-to-End Scent Translation Video
Experience a seamless transition from qualitative memory selection to custom AI-generated fragrance notes.
From inputs forms to emotion chips
Replacing rigid multiple-choice quiz questions with tactile, organic selection anchors helped users focus on identity curation rather than cold database sorting.
From numeric values to spatial presence
Eliminating chemical concentration choices (EDT/EDP) and replacing them with a sliding "Volume of Presence" metric allowed users to choose spatial impact without confusion.
From transactional checkout to editorial reveal
Moving confirmation messages into a rich, editorial "reasoning" sheet helped explain the exact matching relationship between their text story and the chosen notes.
An Intimate Mobile & Desktop Experience.
The Invitation
A clean, high-end editorial entry page sets a luxury tone, ensuring users feel they are embarking on a personal journey rather than completing standard form screens.
Tactile Co-Creation
Open-text memory inputs and quick tags allow users to write or highlight moments (e.g. "Warm Rain on stones in Kyoto"), establishing internal connection and emotional investment.
Responsive Desktop Renders
Quantifiable Success.
Testing empirical outcomes against the legacy baseline.
Completion of custom configuration without support.
Certified SUS score (Grade A usability).
Reduction in discovery cycle and decision time.
User intent to remain with custom models.
"For the first time, a discovery system understood me. Not my age or purchase demographics. Me."
The Roadmap Ahead.
A retrospective look at the iterative phases that brought the YouScent vision to life.
Discovery & Synthesis
Conducted field research, observing perfumers in Casablanca and auditing digital scent gaps. Formulated recruitment framework for Scent Enthusiasts and Emotional Seekers.
Framework Development
Developed the MPE (Memory, Personality, Emotion) model to translate qualitative text stories into quantitative molecular structures (Top, Heart, and Base note distributions).
Validation & Testing
Completed validation testing with 12 participants focusing on explaining AI reasoning (XAI) and adjusting note percentages manually before finalizing custom creations.