West Branch Collective is a new tattoo shop in Chicago, Illinois that would like to step up their online presence. The shop is in need of a marketing site and would like to streamline their consultation booking process. Currently, artists are handling consultation bookings through Instagram direct messages.
Clients are only able to locate artists through Instagram. The booking experience is clunky and leaves room for imagination. Clients need centralized information and a clearly defined booking process.
West Branch is a new tattoo shop that needs to take their marketing to the next level and provide their clients with a one-stop shop for information and consultation bookings.
A marketing site that reflects the brands aesthetic containing all necessary business information as well as a streamlined booking process.
My initial research was focused on the needs of the business so I conducted a kick-off meeting with the owners to better understand what the goals of the website were. I was specifically interested in hearing how they are handling their current bookings for new clients and seek out any administrative pain points that the artists were feeling as well as any friction that clients may have mentioned to the artists.
Due to resource and time constraints, I wasn't able to speak with any actual clients to get a better sense of their perspective. After the stakeholder interview, I decided to focus on the following how might we statements with the information at hand.
West Branch Collective wanted a simple one-page layout for their business with the addition of artist profiles for each of the owners. I began with a sitemap to layout the information architecture of the website to inform my designs later on.
After defining the goals, surfacing pain points, and areas of opportunity; I created a user flow that depicts the ideal flow a potential client would follow upon discovering the shop on Instagram through to a successful consultation booking.
The design of the main page and artist pages include responsive layouts that cater to both desktop and mobile devices. Since a majority of clients are finding the shop on Instagram, it was very important to design with a mobile first approach.
The tattoo industry is highly visual and the clients wanted to showcase the interior of the shop and their artwork. We opted for a hero image spanning the entire site, and a focus on vital business information.
West Branch Collective wanted a simple single-page layout for their business with the addition of artist profiles for each of the owners. Armed with a logo that they designed themselves, they wanted to keep the brand to a monochromatic style, so I opted to use shades of black and white to create some separation between website sections. I decided to utilize a pop of color for the call to action buttons in order to draw the eye towards booking their first consult.
Shortly after launching, West Branch Collective received 29 consultation requests through their booking form on the marketing site. After communicating with their clients about project details, they were able to collect deposits and schedule 59% of them for appointments.
This website design project encompassed most stages of the design thinking process and centered around creating a streamlined booking process that catered to both prospective tattoo clients and artists. Moving forward, I will be working with West Branch to iterate on their booking form details and process. Due to the time and resource constraints, we can safely consider this process their MVP.
As the business grows, they may be interested in picking up third-party software to further streamline their client intake. Beyond developing an effective UX, crafting the brand and UI was a gratifying aspect of the project. Even more, learning that West Branch Collective was able to increase revenue through their new booking process was the cherry on top.