Mellify case study
Mellify aims to provide a marketplace for masseurs/massage salons looking for additional clients and individuals who would like to book a massage on demand.
Client
HIMG clinic
Deliverables
Research
UX/UI
Execution time
3 month
Tools
Figma
Context
I’ve got into this project when the team has realized that they need a professional who can create their UI system. After a few discussions, I’ve let them know that I can do much more than only pretty visuals. I’ve set up a presentation for the product owner and the Senior programmer and showcased how UX knowledge and knowing our users will benefit the project.
Previously the business model, competitor analysis and some visual concept was ready, which helped me greatly.
Apart from that I reviewed their collected data and tried to see what is missing and how can we improve the existing idea.
The product owner is a rubbed businessman. For him, time, cost, and quality are the priorities, not user needs. Therefore it was challenging from time to time to get through my UX ideas and design decisions.
The problem
Has it ever happened to you that you wanted to have a great, refreshing massage, but after the session, you just felt like, if some small things would have been different, your experience could have been greatly improved?
For example by changing the background music, knowing the therapist in advance, or just have the massage session at your home or workplace. Long story short, it would be nice to customize every aspect of the session, this way the user would have a more personalized massage experience.
Team and role
I was the sole UX/UI designer in the team which meant that I had to do the research phase to validate our hypothesis and find out if we have a product-market fit before starting to designing and developing. In the team, we had our product owner who provided great ideas and insights into the business side.
I was working with 2 developers, one really experienced coder who checked my work every week and built the back-end, and one junior coder, who started to do the front end when I finished the first part of the web application.
Design process
As I mentioned before, we had to validate, if there is a product-market fit first. I used several methods to conduct my research which I will describe more in detail below.
After we recognized that we are on the good track, we’ve collected the features and I’ve put them into order by using the MOSCOW method.
Following that we could begin to build the application. I started with a few sketches, moved forward to the mid-fi version, and when it was approved by all the team members, I started to do the UI. First on mobile, since mobile scenery is more important in this case and it takes more time to develop. Then moved on to the desktop version.
Research methods used in the process
- Survey
I decided to use Surveys, since it was an easy way to reach a good amount of people fast.
I looked for different groups where masseurs gathered and groups where people who often have massages are gathering.
- Interviews
At the same time, I reached out to people who had massage sessions or worked as masseurs.
I also went into parlors and asked the therapists and owners if I can have a few questions for my research.
- Competitive Analyses
Our product owner has a lot of experience in running and starting businesses.
Together with his knowledge we analyzed our competitors and filtered out the most important elements which we needed.
By the research, it was clear that we going to differentiate 3 types of user groups. Basic Users, Therapists, and Parlors.
User Persona 1. - Basic user
Problem statement:
Katalin needs to find an easy and more visual way to book massage sessions because she is lack of time and would like to choose the exact person and place who is going to massage her
Katalin Nagy:
Katalin is working as a PR managger at a big company. Because she sits a lot in her office, she has back and neck pains regularly. She tried to find good massours but she had some bad experiences, so she is a little bit scared to try again
Goals:
- Katalin needs regular massage sessions at her home or workplace
- She would like to have good price / value offers
- She would like to have professional massours with good resume and with 1+ years of experience
General:
- She lives and works at Budapest
- 31 years old
- PR manager
:Frustrations:
- Can’t really decide between different massours
- She would be happy to rate masseurs and hire them by an on demand platform
- She would like to get to know more about the terapist before meeting him/her
User Persona 2. - Therapist
Problem statement:
Tamas needs a way to gather more clients because he would like to increase his client base and earn more money
Tamás Horváth:
Since Tamas left his previous full-time job because he would like to earn more as a freelancer. Furthermore, he would like to manage his own time to be able to spend more time with his newborn child.
Goals:
- Tamas would like to have more clients
- He would like to find a way to manage his clients easier
- He would like to negitoiate better hourly rate for himself
General:
- He lives and works at Budapest
- 28 years old
- Freelancer massour at Budapest
:Frustrations:
- Can't manage his time
- He can’t find a quality place where he could arrange his sessions
- Clients are often unprepared (smelly or have other intentions)
User Persona 3. - Parlor owner
Problem statement:
Aniko needs a way to manage her business easier because she is really busy and finds to hard to keep up with the modern marketing tools (Facebook, Instagram and online ads)
Anikó Németh:
Aniko is working in the massage industry for over 12 years ago. She managed to create her own massage franchise and she owns 2 saloons now. She has a baby at home so she finds it challenging to manage her saloons, clients, and collages at the same time.
Goals:
- Aniko would like to expand her saloon franchise
- Would be happy to use an up to date solutions for booking and managing clients
- Would like to build up a trustworthy and high quality client base
General:
- She lives and works at Budapest
- 34 years old
- Beuty saloon owner at Budapest
:Frustrations:
- Can’t keep up with the modern trends (ads, booking systems)
- She still have to manage a lot of things about the saloons, so she is lack of time
- Getting appointments from facebook is a little bit messy and hard to follow up
Concept of the application
After we’ve validated the idea, identified the key user needs, and know the necessary features, I was ready to build the MVP. First in mid-fi, then transition into high-fi.
User flow:
- Home screen
- Search Page
- Choose a therapist
- Review her profile
- Choose details fot booking
- Approve your booking
- Book the appointment
Highlited features:
- Personalized experience
Users have the ability to fully customize their therapy when booking.
- User profiles
See reviews, bio, services and more about a therapist or Parlor by profiles.
- Live map location
Users can see therapist in real time in map view, this way they can decide the distance of the therapist.
- Upcoming events
Use the built-in calender and reminders to stay up to date with your appointments.
Visuals
In order to give life to the design, I’ve built my own design system with the necessary elements, such as Icons, form fields, and checkboxes. This step speeds up the UI process greatly and helped to keep consistent across pages while designing. Just as I mentioned earlier, my key goal was to keep it simple, yet elegant and it had to be mirrored in the design system as well.
Final look
Key learnings and challenges
The application is currently in development, and I’m consistently being in contact with the developers to help their work. I hope soon the application going to be downloadable from the App and Play store.
In the beginning, I had a lot of trouble finding the right prospects for my research, but eventually, I managed it.
It was also hard sometimes, to make my client understand my design decisions since he was more focused on the business side and data, not user needs.
Eventually to match my ideas with the developers and help them with the development. I had to deliver every page, icon, image for them. Mainly I used Figma, this way the communication was easier and I could explain something more with ease.
