Building and researching a tattoo marketplace for the user, not for the UX-er!
Designing for the user has become more critical than ever, and I want to tell you why. To start, tasked, along with a group of fellow students, to design a tattoo marketplace. Our client wanted a tattoo marketplace and provided us with initial data such as a simple business plan, recent data on the tattoo market and industry, and the new market’s wants. Since I am compelled to be exceedingly honest with this case study, I must share with you one of my most recent experiences. That being a deep dive into what user center-design is and, with help, what it can often be.
Let us be clear right now; I am a classic millennial. My life is filled with tattoos, doubts, and many a sleepless night spent searching through Instagram. But for what, “that tattoo artist who I know will be able to draw up that cool design, you know the one I have been thinking of for years, that is what.” I quote myself, the 9th of October 2020.
As the research lead on this project, I was initially excited to have designed many aspects of most of my tattoos, with most credit to my actual tattoo artists. Nonetheless, after feedback from our attempts to communicate with the tattoo industry, the industries more enlightened enthusiasts felt to inform us that was, in fact, intruders and unwanted: cough, cough, Reddit.
Tattoos are complicated, and when I think about tattoos, I think about my first — an inked trout on my left forearm that reminds me of my grandfather and my favorite pastime. Sometimes I think about the third, the naked woman tattooed on my left shoulder. These permanent decisions were not easy to make; speaking for myself, they were very painful, but here I am. In case you are wondering, her name is Petunia, and like all good tattoo stories, all mine have theirs and remain unique. But so are tattoos, and such is the tattoo industry.
While keeping my biases aside, this is where I had my assumptions. I might have a few exciting tattoos; however, I do not regret any of them. It is just that my very traditional Catholic mother has a propensity to roll her eyes at many of them. She has her qualms with my tattoos, they still bring me much joy, and there is a lot to be said about that. They bring joy to many people; in fact, even my dad is inked more than most.
Throughout this article, I will discuss the take-aways from conducting user research, testing, surveys, the competitive analysis into the tattoo marketplace, and our product and data. The initial goal was to design and create an internet marketplace. To validate some of our initial assumptions about what our product could and should be. We knew that we had to hurdle into the thick of the research phase as soon as possible. Here we started with 102 user surveys, which we generated using google forms. We did get some good leads other than initial turnback scavenging around the internet in places like Reddit, Instagram, and Slack. Our collective hypothesis was that the industry needed a better way to connect customers with artists. Our suggested users would be people who either had a tattoo, wanted a tattoo or were interested in the tattoo industry.
Our objective was to develop insights into tattoo customers’ actual needs and potential features necessary for a tattoo marketplace. The difference between what we assumed and what we learned was very different.
Much of our early data suggested that people ages 21–35 are very interested in getting tattoos along with people 36-and older who might already have them and need augmentations such as cover-ups, touch-ups, and even removals. We learned that artists could design custom ones and even change old work are the current market need. Unlike the risqué tattoo I have and want to keep, some of our data suggested that the removal industry was also an untapped market since many artists also hold this skill and have this technology.
Early on for us, it became apparent to have the feature and ability to link customers with artists and skilled professionals who have the necessary tools and services for some of these complex projects.
After our initial 15 interviews after screener surveys, we were confident that not only were there very few competitors trying to connect tattoo artists with customers, but the use of Instagram and social media was vital for tattoo artists. After testing and research analysis, we eventually developed and designed a filter system for customers to filter artists very specifically.
Market Research
We decided to design using similar conventions; many of us are familiar with it. Looking at sites such as Airbnb, Amazon, Yelp, and the largest player in the tattoo market Tattoodo, we started designing something that users could use to connect with their favorite tattoo artists, much like Instagram. The yelp search engine, for example, was a key feature we wanted to incorporate, along with some of the filtering capabilities of what Amazon does.
The idea was to create a marketable product that meets our client's deliverables and build for potential users and fulfill their needs. We learned that the tattoo industry was very iffy; many people had difficulties finding an artist that suits their specific needs. This picture is of a fictional persona I created along with my teammates, who did make similar examples. “Alaska Summers” is one of the three target users we generated to help us design for the needs of actual tattoo customers. As a quick example, she is a potential user who would seek a site such as ours. She wants affordable touch-ups and needs artists who can work in her specific style. Other potential users could be people with a dark complexion or sensitive skin where to they need the ability to find an artist who specializes in such.
Sketching
Establishing these design parameters was only the beginning since much of what we had to accomplish was building a marketplace website using Axure RP. If you are unfamiliar with it, I suggest YouTube and lots of coffee. It’s not as scary as I once thought; even before building in, I did take it upon myself to go into paper prototyping. While we all did, and we even did a few quick tests with Invision Studio using a collaborative paper prototype.
Once the squad agreed on the sketches' general layout, we created versions of our paper prototypes digitally in Axure RP and built out interactions between pages. Next, we needed to validate what we had made with real people who might use or join our tattoo marketplace.
Usability Testing and Refinement
That largest part of my role was here, the testing. Researching is endless, and much of what comes of it is are just ideas, yet at this point, once one sees some assumptions come to light. I even coerced my partner to test my actual paper prototype since in-person assessments are rather tricky with pandemic life. Aside from her quick casual test, remote testing was the bulk of what we inferred our iterations entail. I do not think the coercing stopped there either; I am quite sure I owe a few people some handmade pottery now.
Testing our actual prototype allowed us to gain insights and learn what is working and what needs to be more reliable. Like how we gathered user data for our surveys and initial interviews, my classmates and I did together to test our first version and prototype. We examined several people during user testing and found many things needed to be changed, and these were not limited to:
Here are two examples of before and after iterations on our prototype and some changes made after testing.
· Adding photos under customer reviews for tattoo removals.
· Adding additional menu items to dropdown on the inspiration page to match the artist filtering page.
· Rendering colors to the sign in and register buttons, so there is a clear differentiation for the user. Rendering everything to be cohesive and matching, allowing harmony with the site.
· Adding the Tattoo Inc. logo on top of navigation instead of the placeholder image.
· Adding artist header on top of artist cards on the filter page, it is clear what the image cards are — adding Pictures and better reviews for artist portfolios.
· Adding body piercings to the artist profile page as well as on the inspiration page.
· Adding a thumbnail photo of the flash tattoo to the order page.
· Adding removal filter next to flash, healed, custom on the artist filter page.
Navigation
Our site’s flow and navigation remain simple; the user’s need for onboarding remains clean and simple. The services remain focused on need the client ask for, such as memberships and Lyft ride services. Much of the website’s original flow was designed on this principle how a user would onboard here need to be gentile and straightforward. We did not want to force people to create an account or membership yet entice them to connect them to tattoo artists they enjoy. Aside from this, I felt the easiest way to represent and how the final product in gif. This represents our mid-fidelity prototype.
Next Steps
- High-fidelity mockup & handoff to developers-
- Add artist merchandise page-
- Partner with companies for payment plans-
Prototype Link:
