Streamlining Beauty & Wellness Bookings

Overview and Outcome

Boka is a beauty and wellness booking platform designed for both customers and service providers. My role focused on enhancing the mobile applications for customers and service providers. I collaborated with another designer working on the desktop UI for customers, providing feedback to improve usability.

By refining the booking system and addressing key challenges, we improved the overall user experience, streamlined appointment scheduling, and maximized service provider efficiency.

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UX/UI Process

Research & Requirement Gathering

To better understand the challenges, I reviewed feedback from both customers and service providers. The platform needed to be intuitive for customers booking services and efficient for service providers managing appointments.

I met with the CTO and client to clarify requirements and gather insights on current pain points. Key challenges identified included booking time slot inefficiencies, managing services that could be performed simultaneously, handling add-ons, and managing travel time for freelance service providers.

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Defining User Needs

For customers, the booking process had to be fast and straightforward, with a focus on reducing friction when selecting services. Service providers, on the other hand, needed the ability to efficiently manage their time, including offering multiple services and tracking travel time.

I worked with the team to prioritize features based on user needs and business goals, ensuring the solution would benefit both customers and service providers.

Wireframing & Prototyping

With the insights from user research and requirements gathering, I began designing wireframes for the customer and service provider mobile apps. The focus was on improving the booking flow, time slot management, and service provider controls.

A major feature I designed was allowing service providers to set services that could be performed concurrently, which ensured that overlapping appointments could be effectively managed.

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Problem Solving and Design Solutions

Minimizing Service Provider Time Waste: To address the issue of long, fixed time slots, I suggested offering 15-minute increments for booking. If a service was shorter than the allocated time, the system would automatically suggest adjacent time slots for the service provider to maximize efficiency.

Add-Ons Management: I designed a system where service providers could list add-ons, categorizing them as paid or time-dependent. The UI would notify customers if the selected time slot couldn’t accommodate the add-ons, allowing them to choose an alternative slot.

Managing Simultaneous Services: Some services could be done concurrently, so I added a feature for service providers to indicate which services could be performed at the same time, ensuring that even if a service provider was technically booked, the system would still show availability.

Travel Time for Freelancers: For freelance service providers, I incorporated travel time into the booking system, ensuring that when a customer booked a service, we knew which time slots were available based on the service provider’s current appointments and travel time.

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Collaboration & Development Handoff

Throughout the design process, I collaborated closely with the development team, using Jira to track tasks and ensure timely delivery of features. I also ensured all design assets and specifications were documented and passed on to the developers for implementation.

Once the final designs were complete, I conducted a handoff to the development team and provided support during the implementation phase to ensure design integrity.

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Key Takeaways

Efficiency is key: Designing for both the customer and service provider requires balancing simplicity with advanced functionality. Providing features that reduce friction while maximizing efficiency helped improve the overall experience.

Scalability matters: The system needed to be adaptable to future features, such as adding new services or managing more providers, so flexibility in the UI and booking flow was essential.

Collaboration drives success: Close communication with the client, project manager, and development team was crucial to ensure alignment on requirements and priorities.

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