Productivity Case Study
The Barbershop Case Study
Hello
I’m James Bynner, a visual design student at General Assembly specialising in UI/UX storytelling
The Project
The Squires is a fictional UX design project. Paired with another GA student I was presented with a design problem concerning the long waiting periods for walk in barbers and asked to design an app which increased customer retention while boasting productivity during wait periods.
I managed all aspects of the project, from the initial user research and ideation, through to prototyping and user testing.
Duration: 2 weeks
Tools: Miro, Marvel and Figma
Success criteria
The overall objective of the redesign was to identify the problem areas and propose solutions to improve the overall customer’s experience.
The Process
Empathise / Define / Ideate / Prototype / Test
Understanding the Target Audience
I began this project by interviewing the student who presented me with this problem. I wanted to know the answers to 3 key questions — what are we making, why are we making it and what difference will it make to his life should the solution work? So, I interviewed the student.
Affinity mapping
Affinity maps highlighted user’s key motivations, needs and pain points concerning the walk-in barbering experience. The following diagrams shows all insights recorded. In our discussions ‘frustrations around not having a regular time slot and the need to use this time in useful ways’ appeared to be reoccurring themes to incorporate as ‘I statements e.g. I value good communication and efficiency’.
‘I statements were used to not only highlight key user values but to explore possible solutions using ‘how might we’ statements.
My experience of user research up until this point had been difficult to gather. In response the the problem I was given, I made a number of assumptions which led me to questions whether this was a genuine problem or simply the experiences of a few disgruntled customers. If walk in barbers are so problematic, I asked myself, why not just book an appointment. Problem solved.
The scope of the problem (waisted time, impatience) felt small and insignificant. I had further discussions with the student I was paired with which brought up interesting discussions re how the desire to look good linked to increased self worth and self esteem, but ultimately, these lines of enquiry lost traction and came to a dead end.
In order to get my teeth into this project, I brought up my dilemma in my one-to-one with the course tutor and this led to a 3 way discussion with my fellow student. It was agreed to refocus this project on the theme of ‘productivity’.
User interviews
This project now felt exciting and potentially expansive, so set up 4 interviews using personal contacts to dive deeper into the world of Productivity. I interviewed a Multi Media Specialist, Sports Psychologist, Technical Director and Civil Engineer and Senior UX professional.
Once all interviews were carried out, I iterated my first affinity map to include the new insights.
While the second wave of interviews gave me a deeper understanding of what Productivity means in specific working environments the questions I devised were too broad and didn’t offer any new insights to the initial brief.
I refocused my research to explore the pain points of two different professionals in the barbering industry and finally felt I had gathered enough information to develop design solutions.
The most common pain points identified:
- No booking option — customers are unable to book and the waiting times are causing young professionals to look for a service which offers a booking system
- Lack of updates re how long customers will wait — difficult for customers to plan around — particularly for young professionals or those with busy social lives or family responsibilities
- Walk in barbers are no longer profitable — as high end barbers who offer booking systems become increasingly popular, the traditional barbers are falling behind the times and losing customers — 90% of all customer retention according to leader barber, Charles Clarke is because salons offer a booking system
It was also evident that customers greatly valued personalisation and customisation.
Competitive analysis
I looked at the Salonrunner App, Nimbus Salon Website and Joe’s Barbers, noting the relevant features to further understand their strengths and weaknesses. I evaluated each competitor website on three principles: Visibility of Notification Status, Recognition Rather Than Recall, and Aesthetic and Minimalist Design.
Synthesised insights gathered:
Pluses: Relatively clear visibility of system status, excellent recognition (no need for recall).Clear visibility of system status, great recognition and recall, and decent aesthetics — not perfect, but fits the theme. This website most closely resembled what I was trying to create.Very, very clear visibility of system status.
Delta: Poor learnability (too much going on to enable users to easily recall booking steps for next time). Text images overlays cluttered design
Creating Empathy Maps and Personas
Empathy Map
The empathy map helped me categorize the various feelings that my user would go through during certain scenarios.
This exercise was very useful in helping me empathize with my target user through several instances by predicting what they would likely think, say, feel, and do. I was ready to create the persona and problem statement.
User Persona — Meet ‘Jamie’
The insights I uncovered from both my primary and secondary research allowed me to create a user persona, ‘Jamie’, on which to base my redesign decisions.
Here are some of the key insights from the persona:
- Convenience and ease of use are important to users
2. Efficient and effective booking systems
3. Live notifications telling customers how long they will be waiting for
Problem statement
Jamie cares about using his time productively. He has a haircut once a week and gets frustrated with the long waiting time in walk in barbers. He wants to have an efficient and slick haircutting experience and to use the waiting time in meaningful ways.
How Might We (HMW)
After digging deep with research, I devised a number of HMW questions:
User Flow
Using insights gathered from the persona, I put together a user flow to visualise Jamie’s steps through the app, focusing on how to manage waiting times and the desire to have ‘the whole barbering experience’ as identified from my user interview.
Proposed solutions
I decided on three solutions: Firstly to have a time-slot customers could set which would include an optional alarm notification. Secondly to add a countdown feature to let customers know exactly how long they will be waiting for (based on Jamie’s desire to run local errands should he have enough time while he waits) and thirdly to create the productivity featured.
Sketches and low fidelity wireframes
Using the HMW questions, I sketched initial designs on paper and used Figma to create low-fidelity wireframes on ‘productivity’. Incorporated into these sketches was a productivity section where Jamie can review his goals and progress made.
Usability Testing
After sketching, I created a mid-fidelity wireframe in order to test with users and validate my proposed solutions, I asked three users to:
- Book a haircut and receive a time notification
- To use the virtual waiting room to carry out a task while they wait
All users managed to successfully complete both tasks. 2/3 users requested the following iterations.
The final mid-fidelity prototype
Wrap Up and Reflections
Overall, I’m really pleased with how my first UX case study turned out. In particular, the need to relate all information gathered from user interviews to competitive analysis back to the problem statement to remain in this problem. My own biases and want to explore broader subject matters concerning image and self confidence drew me away from the core issue. While honing in on ‘productivity’ gave the project a new lease of life, this again pulled me away from the brief.
As a designer, I realised how important empathy is when working on briefs. I need to understand the story and, as with this case, why the problem matters. My reflections, takes me back to the first time I spoke to the student about this issue. Did I ask the right questions to get to the heart of the story? If I did, as designers do we need need to be convinced that the problem matters? Creating an authentic solution requires a designer to truly understand the need. Will you always get this — probably not!?
Thanks for taking the time to read my case study! If you have any feedback or would like to get in touch, please feel free to contact me.