Super Nails

Challenges : I had an amazing opportunity to design a responsive website from scratch for Super Nails Salon, a local business in Wisconsin. As they decided to step into online business, they need a responsive website where their clients can book appointments and view special offers.

High Level Goals :

1. Design an easy to use responsive website .

2. Develop a strong branding.

I started by creating a research plan which included the main goals of research, research questions, assumptions and methods of research, in order to better understand the users and to identify potential problems. I conducted secondary research followed by primary research to obtain actual insight into nail salon customers & their needs.

Deliverables: Market Research | Competitive Analysis | User Interview I Empathy Map I Persona

Client Demographics:

94.6% of customers who visits a nail salon on a regular basis are women.

• Of which 21.3% of women are between the ages of 36 - 45, 

• 33.2% of women are 46+ years old, 

• 19.4% of women are between the ages of 26 - 35,

• 17% of women are between 16 - 25 and 3.7% other age groups.

Only 5.4% of customers who visits a nail salon are men.

How do clients make their appointments:

• 39% of clients - Regular appointments ( schedule their appointments one by one)

• 25% of clients - Standing appointment 

• 25% of clients - walk-ins

• 11% of clients - other source. 

Industry Overview:

• There are an estimated 56,300 nail salons in the United states.

• Number of nail salons doubled between 2006 and 2018.

• 16% of the nail care services industry is owned by beauty salon industries in the US.

• Expected to grow with the forecasted revenues of $5.7 billion in the upcoming years.

• Over $605 million worth nail polishes is purchased each year in the US.

• The average price for nail salon services in the United States is $21.00

• 86% of customers opt for gel manicure/pedicure.

• 75% of customers opt for nail art.

• 25.7% of customers spend about $101-$200 per month on nail supplies. 

Trends:

• Gel-polish and dip system remain very popular.

• Color is still preferred by many clients over pink, white or nudes.

• The majority of people who visits nail salon on regular basis are married or married with kids. 

• Some states like California allows salons to serve complimentary alcoholic beverages to attract male customers. 

• Nail art is one of the top five most tagged items on both Pinterest and Instagram.

• Busiest salon days - Thursday (27%), Friday (24%) and Saturday (25).

I then created provisional personas to summarize the data gathered from market research based on key demographics, behavioral patterns and highlighted pain points of of nail salon customers.

I then performed a competitive analysis to identify competitors of super nails salon. This helped me to identify the gaps in the market, to uncover market trends and pave way for opportunities that the competitors haven't taken advantage of. 

Before setting out to interview the customers of super nails, I prepared an interview guide with open-ended questions to gather qualitative data. Then, I went to the mall where the salon was located to conduct the interviews. I was able to interview with 6 participants (2 male & 4 female) at super nails salon. The participants were between the age of 28-55 yrs old. They were asked about their salon experience, how they discover super nails salon, about their online experience (book an appointment, checkout services, etc.). Each interview lasted for about 15 minutes.

Insights

• Customers are frustrated with long wait for services.

• Customers prefer to go with the same nail technician every time.

• Deals influences customers decision to go to a particular salon.

User Needs

• Customers need to be know that wait times won’t be long. 

• Customers need to be able to select their preferred nail technician. 

• Customers need to see deals. 

Based on the data collected through empathy mapping and initial research, I created an engaging persona. This persona is a representation of the users which focuses on the needs, frustrations, motivations and goals of users. Also, to examine the emotions of users and their psychology.

Moving on to the second phase of design thinking process, define phase is where I established a clear idea of the problems identified during the research phase, through analyzing them and synthesizing goals and point of view statements, while focusing on defining the problem statements in a human-centered manner. Followed by empathize and define phase, I engaged in ideating best possible solutions for the problems identified so far.

Deliverables: POV Statements & HMW Questions | Brainstorming | Business & User Goals I Feature Roadmap I Sitemap I User Flow I Sketches

Based on the user insights and needs gathered during empathy mapping, I began to define point of view statements by combining three elements user, need and insight. However “how might we” questions have the potential to spark ideation. I know for a fact that an actionable problem statement will definitely help drive the rest of my design work. Below is the point of view statements and how might we questions.

I then started to brainstorm possible ideas to “how might we” questions through mind-mapping technique and took note of as many possible solutions as I could within a time period.

Here, I outlined business goals, user goals and the mutual goals between them

In order to communicate key product priorities, I created roadmap using Airtable, most importantly indicates the goal, effort and priority. After prioritizing the features based on the importance to business and user goals, I moved on to the information architecture of super nails website. This map shows the page, sub-pages and features that will be later implemented in the design.

I then quickly started to sketch out ideas to generate possible solutions to the problem identified. I referred to competitors’ salon sites to get an overall idea, in order to create a simple and intuitive design. Here, you can see that I sketched out the key pages, sub-pages and features to be included in the design.

After sketching out some ideas, I started building my wireframes and prototype using Figma with the intention of solving the problems identified in during research phase. Further, a usability test was conducted to identify any pain points experienced by the users and to rectify them accordingly.

Deliverables: Mid-Fidelity Wireframes & Prototype I Usability Testing I Affinity Mapping

I began by building responsive wireframes for different viewport - desktop, tablet and mobile.

Upon arriving at the home page, user can browse through the services offered, check out the list of artists and their specialities, view nail art designs or book an appointment. They are also presented with daily deals on the home page of super nails.

Prior to conducted a usability testing, I outlined a testing plan consisting of three different tasks with different scenario for each task. I recruited 6 participants (4 female and 2 male) between the age of 25-34 yrs old. All of the participants were able to navigate through the site easily and complete the tasks without any error. They were able to quickly perform the tasks as the design was intuitive and the user flow was straight forward.

Once I gathered the insights from affinity map, I started working on design recommendations which was later implemented into the design. Several revisions were made to the design in order to provide a better experience for the users by utilizing the known design patterns.

Deliverables: Updated Mid-Fidelity Wireframes & Prototype I UI Kit | High-Fidelity Wireframes & Prototype

I made amendments to the mid-fidelity wireframes by implementing the design recommendations to further improvise the design.

Before moving any further with updating my prototype, I started establishing a strong brand identity for super nails salon. The brand logo is a simple, elegant and modern design which intends to represent the business. The design and the colors are expected to provide users with a unique, relaxing, delightful, welcoming and enjoyable experience to the users.

I then created responsive high-fidelity wireframes for different viewport- desktop, tablet and mobile.

Upon entering the homepage, the user is presented with deal of the day, action button to book an appointment, a top navigation bar containing various options to view services, artists, about the salon, designs, etc. Homepage allows users to read and write review about their salon experience. The artist page shows a list of artists along with their experiences, skills and their speciality. It provides users with a link to book appointment with a specific artist.

Users are allowed to select their preferred nail artist while booking an appointment with super nails. In the services page, the users are provided with a detailed illustration of what the salon offers for each services along with the price. These icons were created using Adobe illustrator and during the user testing, I released that the users were mostly exited about these beautiful icons on the service page.

Next Steps

Choose a redlining tool and hand over the completed prototype to a team of developers. Seek any opportunities to perform as many testing and iterations as possible to find areas of improvements.

At the end of this project, I was fairly surprised with the final result of the prototype. While I’m no stranger to getting my nails done, it was a challenging experience to design a responsive website for a nail salon. I wanted to give some special touches to my design, I worked on building icons for services page to make it more visually appealing and to provide users with a better experience. This project helped broadened my adobe and photoshop skills. Through this project, I have come to understand that the user feedback is crucial while making design decision.