Case study. Designing a management console for Wellness booking platform
A story about UX design process for a startup that speaks about lessons I’ve been learning through the project development. It is a part of my portfolio showcase that aims to unveil approaches in my work.
How did it all started?
In 2015 being inspired with the “viral booking app trend”, we with my friend developer decided to incorporate something useful on the little Baltic market as well. Hence we brainstormed what is a potential niche and figured out the Wellness gap on the market place.
That happened thanks to some talks and surveys which basically gave us an understanding that 78% of people do spend some of their time ranging through the internet to find well-being services. The most needed search spots were defined as: Spa, Fitness and Hairdressing salons.
From that moment on, we rushed furiously into the mobile app development that would give users an opportunity to find the best fit for their wellness needs. We did numerous surveys, interviews, case studies, market research. Eventually we’ve created an app which would find a service provider for user based on his Location, Pricing and Review requirements with some last-minute offers as a bonus.
The problem was that we’ve been passionately focusing on the final app user, closing the eyes on the actual business and market entry strategy.
Once, pitching our app to the business couch, he asked us: Did you actually interviewed Service providers(businesses)? For him it was obvious: No business - no app. But until that moment it was not obvious for us. He literally opened our eyes. Right after the meeting we entered couple of the first hairdressing salons on the way and talked in the freestyle form. That was a moment when we realized how much insights we’re still missing.
The fun was only about to begin.
Mission
We understood the urgent need to develop a platform focusing on the Businesses needs. Primary the goal was to develop helpful management system, that could beat existing booking solutions and be the perfect marketing channel for entry.
Planning
First of all we’ve outlined the methods and steps that needed to be taken in order to create a useful management console.
The list of methods and process model is pretty stardust:
Discovery: Secondary research
User groups / Surveys / Market research
Define: Primary research
30 1-in-1 interviews / Interested clients list for future concepts testing up / Persona’s / Scenarios / Customer journey
Develop: Brief
Intentions + Problems + Market gap = Information Architecture (IA)
Delivery: Design
Low fidelity Mock-up / Prototype / Testing plan and heuristics.
Execution:
Coding, servers, databases, issue solving etc.
Timeline was not fixed as we did it on our own encouragement in the free time gaps. The whole process took about 3 month.
Discovery
We were two foreigners in Estonia. First thing we started with: equipped ourselves with another local person in the team. Once we all sit together, we prepared a questionnaire and spend a whole week for interviews. We literally were walking down the street entering each new salon on the way and asked if the manager have a little bit of a time to talk with us. Later we started to work harder on the databases and created a list of salons we target, collected their contacts, prepared inviting intro mails, then arranged calls and appoint meetings. Eventually it took us a whole month of interviews with couple of meetings per day. Mostly we were focusing on the hairdressing salons issues.
Let’s get straight to the points we derived from the industry learning:
Like in each online service one thing needs to be developed perfect:
A system that can automatically receive user’s bookings.
Though this value understood as a “Basic expectation” according to the Kano model. We figured out that not only the console has to be developed, but there is a tone of nuances to be considered if we want to beat phone-mailing-paper booking system:
- Time slot gaps equal division
2. Last-minute cancellations and no show-ups
3. The length / color of hair / health problems / medical prescriptions etc.
4. Keep up the motivation level of workers.
5. Convenient and instant messaging system, that keep both users and service providers use the app over the phone calls.
6. Safe encryption and data protection
7. Etc…
Here are some insights we’ve came across during the process:
This data we’ve learned, helped us to understand a target user group and by compiling common behavioral needs & patterns to create a Persona profiles.
Market research:
Now, next on the way was Market research . To analyse pros and cons of each market solution the method of “Heuristics” was really handy. We were testing existing solutions according to the next rules:
1.Visibility of system status
2. Match between system and the real world
3. User control and freedom
4. Consistency and standards
4. Error prevention
5. Recognition rather than recall
6. Flexibility and efficiency of use
7. Aesthetic and minimalist design
8. Help recognize & recover from errors
9. Help and documentation
What this research gave us?
- An understanding that there is one big fish on the stage called “Treatwell” (at that time it was Wahanda). It operates in Western Europe market, conquering new countries fast enough and at has at least 5 years of experience. Hence we calmly agreed to change a course from developing a monopoly into a product that could be sold to the Big gamer. The good news that one of the “Treatwell” investors is Estonian. We’ve managed to arrange couple of meetings with him and really understood a business ground with working design principles.
2. SalonInfra — another gamer on the local Estonian market, but sits on the other bank of the river. It’s B2B service, that offers users to book appointments from the site of wellness providers. Our benefit was a mobile application in the hands with a bunch of interested potential users. We could offer a centralized hub for both: Users and businesses.
3. Other solutions were really not user-friendly on the markets we’re targeting. Now, we’ve finally learned good example of design patterns that works and felt a green light on the market.
What was still missing: Some action and actual prototype.
Information architecture and mock-ups
First thing that was important to do is to brainstorm and define a site structure. For this I used XMind mapping software and slowly defined MVP and Beta feature versions
Right after came a time for sketching different compositions according to each section defined in IA.
And finally mock-ups that were tested on the potential customers.
To test black and white prototypes, I wrote 3 tasks to complete and gave them to the Salon’s manager. The idea was to see if there are some difficulties they may stuck in.
As soon as problematic areas, misunderstandings or omissions were defined and fixed, naturally I started to work on the User Interface interaction elements. Most of them were flexible and modular, which would provide fluidity and responsiveness of the service across different screen sizes.
Elements were applied on the mock-up structure and hence user interface collected all the puzzles together in order to be functional and visually clear.
Finally, you can also Test it out in the Invision prototype here.
Here is a list of the tasks you can try to accomplish as a manager too:
- Log in and create your workers profiles.
- Find where can you fill in your Salon information and working hours.
- Add new services available at your Salon:
a) choose from existing list
b) add your own service
4. Check your timetable and filter to see what appointments Sherri Price has this week.
Hope it was fun.
Thank you for reading and testing it through.
