Creating an organizational tool for personal stylists to keep their client information organized.

user interviews

Participants
All have experience with organizing mass amounts of information.
Questioning
experience managing personal info of others
use of organizational mobile apps
sorting preferences
issues
of participants claimed that they do not use mobile organization apps, but would consider utilizing one.
“I don’t care how things are sorted because I use the search bar anyway.”  Participant 2
Main issue?
If information is accidentally erased or needs to be updated.

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

strengths

Calling and texting someone is integrated into the app.
Has a feature where you can take an image of someone’s business card and it autofills that information into the app.
Can import contacts from cellphone without having to manually type in the information.

weaknesses

Contact names are only sorted by last name.
Access to emails only through CRM service.

strengths

Can call, text, facetime, e-mail, and pay a contact through this built-in app on the iPhone.
Fairly simple and straightforward to use.

weaknesses

Cannot choose how to organize contacts.
A notes section, but could be difficult to organize important information.
Only for iOS supported devices.

strengths

Can capture images of business cards to save within contact profile.
Has the alphabet on the right-hand side of the frame so that you can quickly choose a letter to skip to and when you tap a letter, a larger version of the letter that was tapped appears to the left of the finger. This makes it easier to figure out what letter was clicked.
Can sync contact from Google, iCloud, and Twitters accounts.

weaknesses

Has an option for an “assistant”, but can only unlock if you upgrade to a paid plan.
Seems to be a “shinier” version of the standard contacts app on the iPhone.
Knowing what I wanted to achieve with the personal styling client book app, I created a task flow in order to display different features within the new concept.

tASK FLOW

Due to time constraints, I focused on organizing client information and each client’s spending patterns.
I then predicted different user methods to:
  • locate a client
  • determine how much they spent in a given timeframe

USER FLOW

Including features from the iOS contacts app would give a sense familiarity to a number of users. And because sales are of the utmost importance to a stylist – depending on their business structure – I wanted that to be a focus within the client’s profile.
The frames designed were based on this flow:
Locate client Corine Patterson and determine how much she spent in the last 6 months: July ’21 – December ’21.
wireframe sketches

Client home 1

Client home 2

Client profile

Client sales details

LO-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES

LOGO & APP NAME

Now what to name such an app? Q’d (pronounced kyood) as in storing information in a queue seemed fitting for this personal styling mobile app.

STYLE TILE

Clean
Professional
Trendy

TOP NAVIGATION

NewYork
44pt
regular
0.5 outside stroke
H2
Raleway
14pt
regular
underlined
2% letter space

BODY

NewYork
44pt
regular
0.5 outside stroke
NewYork
42pt
regular
0.5 outside stroke
NewYork
36pt
regular
0.5 outside stroke
NewYork
30pt
regular
0.5 outside stroke
Raleway
18pt
bold
2% letter space
Raleway
14pt
regular
all caps
Raleway
16pt
medium
4% letter space
Raleway
16pt
regular
4% letter space
Raleway
16pt
regular
2% letter space

HI-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES

The  hi-fidelity screens created to bring Q’d to life followed my user task flow. Two options for the sorting feature were initially shown, but not displayed later in the prototype.

USABILITY TESTING

(w/ Maze)

testing objectives

Confirm overall ease of use to search for a client in the Q’d app.
Establish search patterns most frequently used by users.
Determine any usability issues with general navigation through the app.
Confirm the overall ease of use of determining how much a client spent at any given time frame.

tasks

1.
Search for client Corine Patterson.
2.
Search for a client Corine Patterson using a different method.
3.
Determine how much Corine spent in the last 6 months. (July ’21 – December ’21)

task completion rate

task difficulty level

(1-10 scale; 1 being easiest, 10 being most difficult)
TASK 1
TASK 2
TASK 3
out of 10
out of 10
out of 10

key findings

For both task 1 and task 2, the same two methods of search were conducted by each participant: the search bar at the top and scrolling.
Every participant had some issues when going through the third task.

affinity map

PARTICIPANTS

task 1

SUCCESSES

PAIN POINTS

INTERACTIONS

UI DESIGN

completed task
rated 1 on difficulty scale
used top search bar to complete
used scrolling to complete
intuitive
straightforward
familiar
liked how recent searches
populate
liked how name and picture populate in search
liked how picture is shown with name

task 2

SUCCESSES

PAIN POINTS

INTERACTIONS

UI DESIGN

completed task
rated 1 on difficulty scale
rated 4 on difficulty scale
issues with clicking buttons in apps
used scrolling to complete
used top search bar to complete
intuitive
expected names listed alphabetically by last name
liked clickable side alphabet
liked how name and picture populate in search

task 3

SUCCESSES

PAIN POINTS

INTERACTIONS

UI DESIGN

completed task
rated 2 on difficulty scale
did not compete task
took a long time to figure out
rated 6 on difficulty scale
rated 4 on difficulty scale
straightforward
check boxes not necessarily intuitive
liked check box feature
liked total amount at end
liked clean look on sales page

overall

SUCCESSES

PAIN POINTS

INTERACTIONS

UI DESIGN

easy to navigate
small number font style could be hard to read
does not use bottom search
easy to read
minimal
liked color palette
liked fonts
Most of the confusion stemmed from not being able to figure out how to sum up an amount spent during a given timeframe, I added an onboarding pop-up to direct the user to utilize the filters when viewing a range of sales.
prototype