cannabinder
Revolutionary B2B2C Cannabis Product Comparison and Recommendation App
Your typically atypical startup.
brief.
This is a case study on a business; The business of providing cannabis users a way to navigate the incredibly opaque and convoluted cannabis industry.
TYPE OF WORK
UX Design, UI Design, Design System Creation, Go-To-Market Strategy and Execution
TITLE
Co-Founder, CMO, Director of User Experience
TOOLS USED
Axure, Figma, Panic Nova, FullStory
Why.
The recreational AND medical cannabis business is like the wild west. Regulations are few and vary state by state, county by county.
Product identification is a trial and error situation, even when buying the same product from the same producer, batch to batch.
While this may not be a big problem for an individual using cannabis recreationally, it can have disastrous effects for those who are using cannabis for medical reasons.
What is the problem?
It's mostly a chemistry problem.
To keep things simple, a particular cannabis product (re: Brand Name) from a single source can vary in it’s chemical makeup from batch to batch due to variables during the growing and processing process.
That means if you used “Sour Diesel” from “Green Leaf Growers” last month to reduce stress, this month’s batch might actually induce paranoia for you.
That’s a serious issue, especially for people managing real life issues with cannabis.
It's also a product naming problem.
Let’s look at that “Sour Diesel” product again. Much like other foods or medicines, there are several providers of any particular item, like milk, or chicken, or ibuprofen.
However, there is almost no chance that the Sour Diesel product from Green Leaf Growers has the same (or close enough) chemical makeup as the Sour Diesel from Herb's Herbs.
It's also an education problem.
As with any complex product, we don’t expect our audience to be masters of the science. That’s why we have experts, auto mechanics, doctors, and sommeliers.
So it's really a trust problem.
As an everyday consumer there is currently no way to reliably understand the effect any given cannabis product will have on you. We needed a simple solution to a very complex issue.
Market Research
The Product
For this project, we needed to truly understand the science behind how cannabis works when ingested by humans.
Cannabis is a chemically complex plant, especially when it comes to how it can make you feel. There are the Cannabinoids, these you have probably heard of, THC and CBD. These two are the ones that typically provide the largest effect on your body. There are also over 35 Terpenes (commonly referred to as essential oils) that can be present in differing quantities, or none at all. It is the combination and relative potency of Cannabinoids and Terpenes that make up the full chemical profile of cannabis that may have psychological or physiological effects.
On top of that, your personal body chemistry, life experience, and delivery method (combustion, ingestion, topical, etc.) also effects how you will experience any given cannabis product. That means, even though two or more individuals may receive the exact same product with the same delivery method, it is not guaranteed they will have the same experience.
The Industry
The cannabis industry is not new, but it is finally starting to become mainstream as state and local governments begin to legalize and regulate its production, sale and use.
The majority of cannabis products today are, for lack of a better term, natural. This means cannabis plants are grown as a crop, then processed into various products.
Inevitable variability in the growing process (seed sourcing, light exposure, fertilization, temperature, air quality, etc.) ultimately lead to variability in product chemistry, regardless of the product brand name. For the most part, these products are lightly processed, either dried to create cannabis flower (for smoking) or distilled into concentrates to make edible, topical, or other smokable products. This means often products retain a similar chemical profile to the crop.
The Labs
Legally produced cannabis is required to obtain a certificate of quality from a certified lab. Labs are required to test each batch of product for cannabinoid content (THC and CBD) and to ensure there are no harmful chemicals present. Cannabis growers can also request and pay for additional testing to determine the terpene content, though it is not mandatory.
The Cannastamp™ & Cannabinder
With our understanding of the product, the industry, the end user, and the regulatory guidelines, we developed a product label and accompanying app that provides clarity for our end users:
What am I buying and how will it affect me?
The Cannastamp is a highly readable, simple graphic that displays the relative potency of cannabinoids and eight of the most common terpenes found in cannabis products. Simply comparing the shape of the graph allows prospective buyers to understand what the chemical content of a product is.
Cannabinder is the accompanying app that allows consumers to record what products they have tried, what their experience was, and rate it for use based on a set of experience tags. Cannabinder will then provide recommendations for available similar products based on the consumer's personal experience.
