Hairologistglory hair salon
Conducted an effective design sprint to create the first iteration of Hairologistglory Hair Salon's website
Role
UX Designer + Researcher
Conducted user interviews and competitive analysis
Facilitated usability tests
Created personas, journey maps, and user stories
Built wireframes & low fidelity prototype
Timeline
3 Week Design Sprint
Week One: Discover
Week Two: Define
Week Three: Develop
Tools
Figma
Miro
Maze
Optimal Workshop
Canva
Overview
Glorivee Figueroa is a recent salon owner who has been a cosmetologist for over 13 years. With experience working at multiple salons and being a cosmetology instructor, she has developed a consistent clientele. Since opening her new business, Hairologistglory Hair Salon, she has since faced the struggle with expanding her clientele.
Problem
How might we design a solution that showcases Hairologistglory's cosmetology experience along with her offered services to help grow her business?
Audience
We wanted to give potential clients/consistent clients (male or female) a central source for all Hairologistglory Hair Salon intel.
Solution
A website that displays Hairologistglory Hair Salon's offered services, cosmetology experience as well as a form of contact in one essential setting.
Discovery and Research
First up, identifying the problem! Usually, my beginning methodology for most of the projects I have done, would be conducting a survey. Since I am dealing with a small business that already has their brand representation out there, I will be facilitating user interviews instead, where participants are analyzing Hairologistglory’s provided content. Hairologistglory Hair Salon is struggling with expanding their business. I’m approaching this problem by gathering insights from users unfamiliar with Hairologistglory Hair Salon. Seeing from a potential client's point of view will further distinguish the predominant issue with the business failing to expand.
Competitive Analysis
Performing a competitive analysis is beneficial whether I have created a product or not because I will be able to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors within the market. I looked at Lambros Looks which is a cosmetologist portfolio for Hannah Lambros, Tipsy Salon Bar a branded website for a salon, and a an Instagram profile for a cosmetologist, @soyjanders.
Persona Creation
Having already observed and interviewed some people who align with my desired audience. I found patterns in the collected responses from my interviews and used them to group people and goals together. I then distilled those patterns into common behaviors and traits and created these two Personas.
Information Architecture
User Stories were created to prioritize tasks for the minimum viable product design.
The importance of each task is rated by considering the participant's responses within the user interviews.
As a user, you want to view prices before booking, so that you're able to know if the service is within your budget.
…… And along came sketching
Physically putting my ideas on paper helped me better visualize the solution to the initial problem, How might we design a solution that showcases Hairologistglory's cosmetology experience along with her offered services to help grow her business.
Converting the sketches to wireframes
Implemented a navigation bar to neatly classify all that Hairologistglory Hair Salon website has to offer
Hero space usage on landing page to establish what the business is all about
Added a Resume/Client Showcase tab with images imported from Hairologistglory's instagram as resources for you users to learn about Glory’s cosmetology experience
Pop up Contact page for smooth communication between the user and Glory. Contains hours of operation, number to reach at, and an inquiry form.
Before gathering participants to test my low fidelity prototype, I went ahead and had a few colleagues test out the prototype. They suggested that I got rid of the "lorem ipsum" or placeholders and to actually place content there. The primary goal is to design a solution that showcases Hairologistglory's cosmetology experience along with her offered services to help grow her business and not displaying how I achieved that defeats the purpose of this study.
Open Card Sort
After speaking with my client she sent over a list of services and I decided to conduct an open card sort to help categorize them for easy interpretation. Having services organized into a menu format is one of the most important internal advertising tools that can be used to educate a user about the experience.
What I Learned
Positive
“Simplified navigation"
“It's useful to have prices displayed on the website so I could have a ballpark of what I would potentially be paying"
Negative
"Being that it is so information heavy, I would not find myself returning to the site because I will be knowledgable after first visit"
Final Thoughts
Moving forward, I would love to continue working with Hairologistglory Hair Salon into the branding phase. As an independent business owner you have to juggle a lot of things on your own such as booking appointments. In the future, I would love to implement an online booking system on the website to reduce Hairologistglory's workload and further enhance a positive user experience.