Head Designs

Overview

Head Designs is a natural hair salon in Oakland, Ca. The project began as a site redesign in 2018 and has gone through multiple iterations since then. Sheila Head has served as owner and stylist of the salon for over 40 years.

My Role

I worked on this project as the sole Product Designer and Developer.  Main areas of responsibility:

Goals

Head Design Home Page
Head Design home Page on mobile

Challenge

Business requirements: Within the past ten years, there has been another natural hair movement. Given Sheila’s experience and history with natural hair, she would be one of the top hair salons to visit in the Bay Area. How to visually communicate and showcase Head Design’s knowledge and skill to increase clientele.

User Needs:
When searching for a natural hair salon, you want to learn as much as you can about their services and their credentials from other clients. The task is how to engage and convert clients from their experience on Head Designs website.

During COVID, a new strategy of operations for the salon and the website had to be implemented for Head Designs to survive. I am currently updating the user research and creating new strategies to keep the clientele engaged and create revenue. 

OutCome (Pre Pandemic)

New Clients

30%+

interest shared

80%+

Site monthly visits avg.

1K+

Page views

55%+

Strategy

Combing Through

The natural hair community in Oakland is very competitive. I did a content inventory and competitive analysis of other top natural hair salon websites in order understanding Head Designs’ goals and challenges. 
Hair Salons
Love of hair artistry
Head Design Head Design Logo
Strut
The Curl Lab
Hairapy Session
COVID 10 updates or protocol
Consultations
Only for hair extensions
Services list w/ description and time
Reviews
Blogs / Articles
On site appointment scheduling

Insights

natural hair journey?

Based on collected surveys and Sheila Head’s knowledge and interaction with her clientele I was able to identify the primary personas as people between the ages of 40-60+.
There natural hair movement among the secondary personas age 30-40 is on the rise. I wanted to make sure the site was visually appealing and informative to both the secondary and primary personas.

Personas

Primary Personas
“Empowering Themselves”
Age
40-60+ years old
Hair Education
Well educated about their hair. Knows how much time they want to spend on their hair.
Hair Care
Know how much time they want to spend on their hair. Aware of their hair boundries.
Secondary Persona
Persona 2
“Hair Attitude”
Age
30-40 years old
Hair Education
Willing to learn about their hair and how to take and manage their hair.
Hair Care
They know the least about natural hair care but are eager to learn.
tertiary Persona
“Embracing your texture”
Age
20-30 years old
Hair Education
They have never learned how to take care of their hair.
Hair Care

Wants quick fixes to their hair issues. Or has unrealistic haircare goals.

ReCreating the structure of design

After removing old or irrelevant pages from the Content Inventory in the discovery phase, uncovering user’s pain points, and problem-solving opportunities, we created a revised simple site map layout. This also helped define our redesign scope and strategy. Many of the pages were out of date or could merge into one page.

Iterations

I was able to identify problems with the original design and use the knowledge from the personas, site maps, surveys, and business goals to create new structural layout solutions.

Original Home

The original Head Designs homepage and website featured irrelevant content and links. The homepage needed to be strategically restructured and responsive to meet today’s users.
Wireframe
Original Head Designs Site design

Home Wireframe

I wanted to introduce and communicate Head Designs’ main business features visually and clearly to users for the homepage.
Wireframe

About Wireframe

The about page is often the second or the third page viewed after the Home page or the Service page. The original website was missing the about page. I wanted to showcase Sheila’s history as  Head Designs owner and founder and her community involvement.
Wireframe

Services Wireframe

Wireframe

Gallery Wireframe

Viewing a hair salon’s gallery is one of the top 3 things people view before deciding to book an appointment at a salon.

Having the images categorize is a feature we are working towards.

Wireframe

User Testing

I have done many iterations in updating the webpages from user feedback and user testing and user flow using Hotjar. Here are a few validations and implementation that I have done.
Validate
Heat Map
Implement
In the first design of the product page, I improved the design by adding a search and filter on the side. I also updated the product on mobile so that it featured the filter and search. It took some custom code, but I was able to work. I May have to do another iteration, but currently testing it ease with users.
Validate
Implement
Head Designs user survey showed that before users decide to book an appointment with a salon, they always look at a salon gallery. Many users made comments that before and after photos are beneficial. So I am trying a new before and after interactive feature. Currently, in the early testing phase, so we see how many users interact with it.
Implement

Execution

New look! Who dis?

Logo redesign process

Final Designs

Home

Final Design
Mobile

About

Final Design
Mobile

Product

Final Design
Mobile

Gallery

Final Design
Head Design Final Design
Mobile

Product

Final Design
Head Design Final Design
Mobile

Reflections

I am a person that is always trying to find ways to make things better. Working with Sheila on her site redesign and branding, I learned how to tame my driven attitude and listen and collaborate with Sheila and her business needs.
Looking back, I wish that I documented more of the iterations. I work and forget to record what I am doing and my thought process.
The next step is to continue to develop Head Talk and ways it can support the Head Design community during the pandemic and also bringing in revenue.
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