Tattoo Now
Welcome to my portfolio project from Google's User Experience Design Certificate.
Stay tuned as I continue to progress and improve!
Estimated Completion Date: January 2025
The Project
Context
For years I worked in tattoo shops around the Boston area. I noticed the industry had a tendency to rely on memory and verbal communication to initiate supply orders.
The Problem
Supplies for tattoo shops are not ordered on time in a convenient manner.
Objective
To design a website and responsive app, Tattoo Now, to make ordering supplies at a tattoo shop easier.
My Role
Working solo, I'm involved in every part of the process.
Timeline
Six months
Understanding the User
Identifying Users
To narrow the scope of research, I focused on optimizing the solution for one tattoo shop in which interviews were conducted with the owners and staff.
Participants were selected on the following criteria:
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tattoo artist contracted for work in a multi-person tattoo studio
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tattoo shop owner with 3+ contracted artists
This led to 2 distinct user groups: tattoo artists and tattoo studio owners, both who work in a collaborative, high-traffic area.
Sample Interview Questions
and their intent
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What role do you currently play in providing your workplace with supplies?
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What role do you want to play in acquiring shop supplies?
The questions above, asked of every interviewee, are intended to understand the current process along with its faults, and help to design a future process with the right people involved.
Tattoo shop owner:
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What does a lack of supplies mean for you as a shop owner?
Tattoo artist:
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What does a lack of supplies mean for you during a tattoo?
The questions above, asked of interviewees based on their role respectively, are intended to unlock feelings resulting from current processes and potentially understand motivation to change.
Pain Points
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With a high volume tattoo shop, too many artists ordering on the behalf of the shop causes supply overflow
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The tattoo shop owner needs to approve the requests for supplies, but oftentimes cannot do so in the moment when the artists’ requests need to be addressed
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Specialty items like specific paper towels or backdrops for photos have no way of being addressed specifically
User Bios
Personas
The research outlined above led to 2 distinct personas, each representing a group: tattoo studio owners, and tattoo artists working in a large studio.
User Mapping, Jacob
Insights Gained
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Planning ahead is crucial. Shop owners and tattoo artists alike do not want to be thinking about supply levels during appointments as it causes unnecessary interruptions to both parties.
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Tattoo artists care about what materials are used in the creation of a tattoo more than the product cost.
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Tattoo shop owners care about the bottom line more than brand name products.
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Without an administrator role in the shop, both tattoo artists and tattoo shop owners need to have some responsibility to ensure fully stocked supplies.
Goal Statement
Our Tattoo Shop Supply app will let users place inquiries to request supplies rated on a scale of urgency which will affect tattoo artists by assuring their supply needs are recorded and then ordered. We will measure the effectiveness of its impact by tracking how many times a tattoo artist is in need of supplies and does not have any.
