Design Brief
Provide consultancy to a hairdressing business about online booking and eCommerce service. Design and deliver the most cost effective and low maintenance solution taking into account the lack of resources to manage the system on a day to day basis. Develop an understanding of how the customers base would interact with such technology. The main requirement was to provide an appointment booking service via the website. displaying the salon interior on a website was a secondary requirement. The client also wanted to provide an online shopping experience but this was initially outside the scope defined. There was a very limited budget available and any solution must be very maintenance.
Design Method
a) Using Stripe's Surveys Principals to uncover the businesses unique selling points. Understand what devices are most used by customers and what their online behaviour are.
b) Based on the findings I developed a Persona to aid the website development.
Main Research Finding
Users will not use google as a means of accessing the website. Facebook is their main port of call when on the web. Most have never book an appointment online.
Design Strategy
Use the website as a place to directed user to social media and a third party booking service that can be integrated into the software used in the salon. The is more expensive than a service that we would host via the website but much quicker and easier to maintain. The business owner can then focus on maintaining their online presents where most users are present.
Delay the develop of an online shopping experience. Investigate the most cost effective and low maintenance solution to integrate with Facebook and Instagram so that products and Ads can be directed at users directly via their Newsfeed and the Business pages.
Website Design Solution
After analysis of the staff and customer surveys, the clients was happy with the paper wire-frame that was delivered. This solution used a main CTA button in the centre of the laying page. This is to make navigation to the primary feature as simple as possible.
Usability Testing
Moderated Usability testing, using the 9 phase Hub Spot model. Mobile testing results are 2/2 tests passed. Desktop testing 2/2 tests failed.
Desktop
Task 1 was to find the booking portal. Both testing participants were successful.
Task 2 was to find the contact form. Both testing participants were unsuccessful.
The success threshold was defined as;
Locating the featuring in under 20 seconds without deviating from the main page.
Between tasks, users expressed dissatisfaction with the ambiguity and effort needed to scroll back up the page and find the "Price List" link on the menu. The menu should be fixed on the page when scrolling to avoid this issue.
Final result