Gravenwezel Ink
responsive website
Lead UX Designer
Project goal:
Create a website for a tattoo shop that inspires potential customers by showcasing artists and their work and provide a prominent and simple way to book an appointment.
Target audience:
People seeking to get tattoos either for the first time or looking to explore tattoo artist portfolios.
Responsibilities:
User research, wire-framing, usability testing, prototyping, visual design
Research conducted:
I conducted user interviews with people thinking of getting their first tattoo and people who have many tattoos. I inquired about how they would choose a new tattoo, a tattoo shop, and/ or a tattoo artist. I also conducted conversational research to understand what people were saying about their experiences at other tattoo shops.
Key challenges:
There are numerous and highly personal routes people take to choose the tattoo that they want. This tattoo website tries to consolidate a person's search by providing information about the shop's tattooists. It also provides a way for users to filter and explore tattoo images based on art style.
Personas
- Aimee“I want to get my first tattoo to commemorate where I am in life right now.”
Age: 22
Education: Bachelor's Degree
Hometown: Vancouver, BC
Family: Lives with roommate
Occupation: Marketing
Goals
● Get first tattoo
● Have fun
● Tell stories
● Frustrations
● Rude people
● FOMO
● Not getting enough information to make a decision
Aimee just landed her first marketing job and enjoys the work. But she loves going out with friends, having fun, and sharing stories with them. She takes lots of Instax photos of the fun they have together. Now she is considering getting a tattoo to document where she is in life.
- Bruno"I love to find new art and artists that make me say 'holy shit that's awesome.'"
Age: 45
Education: Bachelor's Degree
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Family: Father of two
Occupation: Auction house owner
Goals
● Discover new things
● Keep on trend
● Share great things with people
Frustrations
● Complexity
● Information overload
● Missing out on small but nice moments
Bruno runs an auction house and loves to find new treasures and help other people discover them as well. He has many tattoos and is always looking for the best artists locally or when he travels. He will happily go with the artwork that a really good tattoo artist recommends for him.
Problem statement
Initial concepts
Wireframes
Results of user testing
- Most users were unclear about when they were during the booking process and wanted more reassurance on the confirmation page.
- Many users were confused by the number of filters on the art styles page.
- Some users found the artist pages cluttered with text, images, tags, and social icons.
Final polished designs
I assumed that finding a place to get a tattoo would be a straightforward process. However, I found that it often started with recommendations. Then it veered into a circular path of visiting tattoo shop websites finding artists looking them up on Instagram and repeating these steps until they had the confidence to book an appointment.
I learned that people use very different ways to find what tattoo they want to put on their bodies. I found that they all involved several steps. Making a website for a tattoo shop that helps the customer feel confident and reassured was a challenge.
Next steps
- The user flow should be updated to show an expanded functionality of the filters on the Art Styles page. Then this flow should be usability tested.
- The booking flow should be tested with other variations to study the drop-off rate.
- The website should be tested by a larger audience of users to make certain the site aligns with the tattoo shop’s objectives.
