For my Digital Product Design class, I brought my idea of an app for the tattoo community to life through extensive user research and design thinking. Through research methods such as talking with tattoo customers and surveying the tattoo app landscape, IÂ thoughtfully designed an app that would bridge the gaps in the tattoo discovery and booking process. Â
How can we create a centralized platform for tattoo artists and customers, and expedite the tattoo booking process?
Getting tattoos online is an arduous and complicated process. The tattoo booking process is spread out over multiple platforms. Those who want a tattoo have to search on multiple platforms for artists that suit their taste. After finding an artist, they then have to book their appointment and contact the artist in different locations. With all of these steps and artists all over the place, the tattoo finding process is overwhelming.
Inkedbook, a mobile app that consolidates the tattoo booking process into one place. It serves as a centralized community and booking system for tattoo artists and customers.
Stay updated! View your upcoming appointments, booking statuses for saved artists, and waitlist positions.
Browse tattoo artists, designs, and trends through the community with the Explore and Search functions.
Conveniently book an appointment with the tattoo artist within the app.
Communicate directly with the artist in the app through messaging.
Going back to the question—How can we create a centralized platform for tattoo artists and customers, and expedite the tattoo booking process?—I wanted to fill in my knowledge of the current scene in the tattoo community to find out what was needed to address it.Â
But what information specifically should I look for, and how? I decided on two research methods based on the following reasoning:
I analyzed three existing platforms and tools within the tattoo community based on 4 types of criteria:
• Community
• Artist/Studio information
• Booking
• Communication
Examining the features and UI of each platform and how successful they were in fulfilling each area led to the following insights:
Many platforms only serve as one part of the tattoo booking process.
Acuity and Vagaro had very strong scheduling and booking systems, but they failed to provide detailed information on tattoo artists and studios (i.e. policies and designs). While useful for the booking part of the process, they failed to foster communities with the lack of a space for customers to explore artists and tattoo designs.
Acuity and Vagaro's scheuling and booking systems.
Tattoo artists deserve recognition and ownership over their tattoo designs.
While Tattoodo’s concept came the closest to encompassing the entire tattoo booking process, it fell short of fostering an environment where artists own their identity and work. Tattoodo’s format is similar to Pinterest where various artists’ designs are presented in an inspiration board layout, which focuses on the designs rather than the artists.Â
Tattoodo's explore, profile, and post formats.
Seeing the estrangement of the artists’ works from themselves on Tattoodo, I wanted to create an environment where artists could have more ownership and recognition for their work.
Wanting to hear directly from users, I interviewed 5 users on their experience with finding and booking tattoo artists online.
After using affinity mapping to find themes from the users’ responses, I uncovered the three following insights:
The tattoo booking process is spread over multiple platforms.
It is tedious, discouraging, and confusing when tattoo customers have to navigate through different websites to book an appointment.
Social media is often used to find tattoo artists.
Many tattoo customers would use Instagram as a tool to find tattoo artists and view their work.
There is a need for better communication methods.
Communication is primarily conducted over Instagram direct messaging and email, which further extends the spread of platforms in the booking process.
Based off the interviews, I created two personas to help understand potential Inkedbook users, their values, and what they desire for the tattoo booking process:
Drawing from the personas and findings of my research, I created three user stories to help brainstorm features that would best help users achieve their goals.Â
Tattoo customers:
• Need a centralized system to book from artists so they can spend less time navigating multiple platforms and websites.
• Need a community that allows them to explore tattoo artists and designs so they can find the tattoo artist/design they want.
• Need a centralized platform to communicate with artists.
Based on the user stories, I came up with the following three main features for Inkedbook:
• Booking Form
• Artist Community
• Contact the Artist
Using the three main features as a framework, I used a user flow to lay out the paths of the features and visualize the basic structure of the app. In doing this, I could brainstorm the smaller features of InkedBook and how they could overall be connected to help the user.
Once I had a clearer vision of how the app would be structured, I sketched the interfaces out to brainstorm the layouts of the screens.
Once I had a clearer visualization of how the app would be structured, I started sketching the interfaces to brainstorm the layouts of the screens.
To create the skeleton of the prototype, I created low-fidelity wireframes in order to assess the functionality and organization of the design.
When transitioning to the final, high-fidelity prototype, the wireframe served as a tool for iteration as I tested the product with potential users. Based on feedback from peers and mentors, I made the following improvements to the app:
Using appropriate language to view artists’ work
While booking the appointment, customers have an option to view the artist’s work. The button to perform this action was previously named “View Profile” and the work was laid out in a profile format. To make it clear that this functionality was for users to take a look at the artist’s work to inform their own tattoo choices, I changed the button to “View Work” and adopted a photo gallery style for the artist’s work.
Placing date selection farther in the booking form
The option to choose a date is put at the very beginning of the form, which is unconventional and can put unwanted stress on the user. This was for the purpose of letting customers know when artists are available, as many artists open bookings for appointments months ahead. To address this, the date selection was moved to the last page of the form, and the customer can select only the month for their appointment in the beginning instead to get a sense fo the artist's general availability.
A valuable lesson I took away from this project is that garnering feedback and insights from potential users is an extremely valuable part of the design process. I also learned to be a bit more open-minded when it came to my designs—not being too attached in the sense that there is always room for improvement! I enjoyed practicing my branding and UI design skills, and learning more about what users want.
Some insights for the future:
Exploring more user research methods
While I was able to interview users to learn about their experiences and opinions about the booking process, I wish I utilized more research methods (such as storyboarding or a journey map) to understand the user more as they go through the booking process. At what specific points do users have challenges, and what  current actions do they take to book an appointment? It would be useful to explore the booking process step-by-step in this sense.
Utilizing rapid ideation and brainstorming sessions
Although I did sketch out my ideas for InkedBook, I didn’t come up with multiple options for each interface. In the future, I’d like to brainstorm more ideas in a shorter amount of time. In doing so, I can have multiple options for features and weigh which ones fulfill users’ needs the most.
Thank you for reading! If you have any questions about this project, feel free to email me through bridgit@umich.com!
