BLOOMME UX RESEARCH
BLOOMME Product team
For an article my team wrote up on documentations on building scalable product, check out:
https://uxdesign.cc/14-must-have-documentations-for-building-scalable-products-painlessly-eb72f97f5804
BloomMe was an online platform that connected customers to over 3000 different beauty salons in Hong Kong. It has two products, BloomMe App, the 2C product that allows customers to book appointments with salons, and BloomMe Pro, the 2B product that allows merchants (hair salons, facial, nail salons, massage places, etc.) to organise their bookings and commissions. During my stay at BloomMe, they were undergoing major changes. They wanted to revamp BloomMe Pro into something more intuitive and user friendly that accommodates different types of merchants. My team, the product team, was responsible for collecting user feedback and analyse them to design a better product.
In this project, my team was very collaborative and we did most process together. We actively discussed how to better analyse and organise the data we’ve collected from various sources, and debated about what each data signifies and how they fit into different categories. Upon the decisions made after discussions, I was responsible for the designing of the database, user personas, user journey, and user scenarios.
GOAL
The goal of this project is to understand the needs and wants of BloomMe Pro’s customers and make necessary changes to enhances user interface and experience.
DATA COLLECTION
With a clear goal in mind, our product team started conducting data collection through different methods:
RESEARCH:
Research is a staple method in data collection. In our case, we had to conduct three different research before we could fully understand how to best design and improve our product.
Industry Research
It is important to do ample research on a product’s bigger context to understand the market demands and competitors. We interviewed several salon owners to inquire about the current system they to run their business, and how it differs from and provides advantage to them compared to other salons. We utilise SWOT analysis to help identify which advantages/disadvantages we hold, therefor finding a possible opportunity gap within the existing ecosystem.
Merchant Research
Merchant research is basically our user research. Through interviews and observations of how they interact with our (or our competitor’s) application, we are able to collect a lot of usability issues and pain points. This research method is done mainly through user interviews, as they allow us to also observe the environment in which a user is used to (are they familiar with tech, how comfortable are they when they deal with technology and new applications etc.).
Customer Research
Although the app that my team was working on is a merchant-focused app, it is important to do research on the merchant’s customers as well in order to fully understand their pain points and needs. We do so by collecting data from our existing BloomMe App, details including but not limited to their orders, reservations, preferred payment methods, tracker, searching keywords, and favourites. A lot of the information also come from interviewing the merchants, such as how customers would usually reserve a treatment, and how likely is it for them to attend these treatments as a group.
INTERNAL DATA COLLECTION:
Tracking
Tracking is a good source of first hand data on how users interact with your product in their most natural state. It shows us how efficient and intuitive our product design is, and if not, how to possibly improve that by referring to what the user tries to do instead of following the intended design.
Design Audit
Reviewing past design audits, jot down important points that are made and why… by looking at the changes in little things, like the design of a button, the colour scheme, wordings, formats, glossary… can help provide us an outline of what the product has gone through and what it is trying to achieve. Design audits can also include opinions from different departments of the company, making it an all rounded review session.
Interface audit
Similar to design audits, interface audit also provides useful information and data that could be helpful with the design planning. When reviewing datas of an interface audit, be it meeting minutes, ppt, or any sort of recorded notes, my team tries to jot down the points related to a products’ functionality, usability, and user feedback. We pay extra attention to how people described our product’s function, how they feel about it, as these are factors that could affect a user’s experience of using the product.
Sales team
Our sales teams can often hold valuable information such as when or why a potential client has rejected the company’s offer. This is a very valuable information as it tells us directly what the client likes and doesn't like about the product/company. Could it be the sales pitch? The way we present the product? What we are offering? Price? Functionality? This is the first step into knowing why or why won’t a product sell.
Marketing team
Just like the sales team, the marketing team can also hold valuable information that helps contribute to a better product design. The marketing team would’ve already collected and analysed some data that would benefit them, and this data can be just as useful to the product team. It may not tell us directly what the users want in a product, but it at least tells us what they like and what kinds of things are they attracted to, which can be implemented on the interface and experience design aspect of our product.
USER INTERVIEWS:
Interview is a method we use throughout the entire research and data collection process, and it can continue to serve us well even if we’ve done it multiple times. Every time we conduct and interview and research, we gain new knowledge, and this knowledge will help us shape a better interview script for next time – meaning better, more specific non-leading questions, which in turns yield better data that is more effective. We conduct user interviews on a regular basis and keep them updated, so that when designing our product, we are sure that we are always up to date.
ANALYSING DATA
Knowing how to analyse and organise research finding is just as important as the research itself. Without a good system to analyse and organise, datas are just meaningless numbers. It is only when we deliberately do analysis on them that they become meaningful and ready to contribute. The data we collected are then broken down and organised into the following diagrams for better application and analysis.
PERSONA
ENTITY MAPPING
USER JOURNEY
OPERATIONAL CHANGES
Commission calculation
Will be prototyped in google sheets – if we are able to utilise operational data collected from surveys to conduct a specific calculation method that the merchant wants, then we will be able to build a better commission calculation function.
Reservation options
As different merchants have different reservation requirements, and that their customers have different requests during reservation, it is important to account for these details while designing the operational system.
Accounting
As a large percentage of our users (merchant) would need to present a monthly/yearly balance sheet for their accountants, it is important to include this persona while designing.
Customer relationship management
Better customer relationship means better chance of selling their services, therefore, it is also our job as a product team to help maximise the potential opportunities where merchants can make their customers feel special. Occasions such as birthdays, holidays, or customer preference will be accounted for when dealing with their data within the system.
We ended up with a compilation of design direction and data to back them up, along with a database and a guideline that could serve as a source of reference for other teams within our company. We are ready to move on to the next step – prototyping and building!