Updated documents for my Nail Party Planner project.
- Concept visualization (rough)
- Features set and tech (technology hasn’t been fully assessed yet)
- User experience flow chart
On February 28, 2010, I organized a small nail party with four awesome girls – Asli, Meredith, Liesje and Kristin – from my school. The party went well! Asli and I did pedicures, and the rest did manicures. We were seating in a separate place, but we got together in the end when we were drying nails.
Here is the breakdown of my actions along with comments in italic pink.
Feb 21
- Sent e-mails to several girls to see if they’re interested in a nail party. I wrote in the e-mail that the cost was around $10 for mani and that the party was likely to happen on either 2/27 or 2/28. -> It’s helpful to let people know the approximate date & cost in advance.
- Reactions:
- “I can’t believe it’s only $10. I always thought it was so much more.”
- “This will be the first time I get my nails done..”
- “I already made a plan for that weekend! May be next time!”
- After figuring out that it would be a group of five, I started looking for a nail salon around the NYU campus.
- Note:
- Some salons I called earlier said, “there’s no way we can do five people at the same time!” -> Need a way to figure out the maximum capacity for each salon.
- I eventually decided to go with a salon that I knew, because I knew what exactly to expect from them. I could have chosen other places, but it was hard to determine just by reading reviews on Yelp and Google. I wanted photos of the salons, because the interior and ambiance mattered when choosing a venue for someone. -> My service needs to provide some visual references for nail salons.
- Reservation made at Jay Nails for February 28 at 1:00 pm.
Nail Party Invitation
- Created an invitation (see a photo above) in Adobe Illustrator -> Need to figure out an easy way to create a customizable invitation.
- Sent out the invitation to those who said “I’m attending.” -> It will be nice to see the list of “who’s attending.”
Feb 24
- Sent a reminder e-mail -> Is there a way to automatically do this?
Feb 26
- One person said she had to cancel.
- One person asked me if she could join the party -> Luckily, I didn’t have to adjust my reservation, but I think my service has to be flexible and adjustable for last minute changes
Feb 28
- We’re supposed to meet in front of Jay Nails at 1:00 pm.
- Three of us got to the salon on time, two people came in a bit late -> What happens if someone could not make it? What happens if someone come in late?
- We had to sit in different seats – not so much talking while getting nails done -> Salons have to ensure the seats for large groups
- Girls sitting next to each other while drying their colored nails
- We were able to get together while drying the nails -> Talking part was my favorite.
- Talked about getting take-out lunch after the salon
- Talked about thesis projects
- Talked about other “stuff”…
Tweets!
- Asli tweeted about the party from the nail salon
- Took photos
- Shared photos on Facebook, tagged all photos with friends
I've got pink pedi!
Based on the recent shift in a direction for my thesis project, I’ve made a small adjustment to my production timeline.
Hooray!
I organized a small nail party at Jay Nails with some colleagues today, and it was so much fun that I decided to pursue my Nail Party Planner idea for my thesis. I’m committed to this idea from now on. Hooray, I finally nailed down my thesis. Now it’s time to plan out the details. Fun!!!
After discovering the competitive service, I got lost. I had a dilemma of either pursuing the original Nail Art Recipes idea or the new Nail Party Planner concept. In confusion, I presented my struggle in class, hoping to get some feedback on which direction I should explore. Here are notes copied from the feedback index card.
- I like your social networking idea (Nail Party Planner), because it’s based on the mobile technology.
- Regarding your recipe idea, it seems that you’re trying to bridge professional nail artists and amateur nail art lovers. How are you going to control the quality of photos and postings made? (Very good point about the quality maintenance issue… I didn’t really figure it out. Thanks, EJ!)
- For recipes idea, try including stores from which customers can purchase products.
- For recipes idea, try creating conversations around it. In “Instructables,” some people have Instructables site as their default home page. People buy “Processing” T-shirts. Why? I think it is more about having open source community that people are creating together. For example, Processing has forums, which create conversations around the topic. They also have thought leaders like Casey, Shiffman, etc. So maybe you can find “nail artists” to control the community. Those thought leaders can keep updating and posting stuff. Like Processing.org, you can have an exhibition of your work (nail art). Make your site open, make user forums, and find good people who can drive other people into the site. Giving the feeling of “exclusiveness” is another important factor. Users should feel that their work are chosen. (Mustafa gave me a very detailed suggestion for the Nail Art Recipes concept. And I really like the idea of creating a open community with thought leaders as driving force behind it. Thank you so much!)
- Recipes: business model, visibility, first adopters (Leejay made a valid point about getting the first adopter. How am I going to market my service?)
- Focus on social networking and face-to-face interactions (thanks, Cameron!)
- Find the sweet spot
- Face-to-face seems important to you. Do it!
- Combine face-to-face with online user interactions
- Business owners can be your first adopters
- Network: how can people see nail art from other social network settings?
- How do you make it more social – web forums?
- The balance of face-to-face and real-time online communications
- You can build social networking thing later.
- Nail artists vs. nail lovers.
- Get some teens for user testing, if possible. (Thank you, Gloria. Yes, I will have to find some focus groups…)
What a disappointment! During my research this morning, I came across this site, Life Booker, which is basically offering the same stuff I was going to do for my thesis. The site look so polished and complicated (they even have a selector for chooseing the number of clients for making reservations!). They have everything I wanted to build… filtering, bargain-priced offers, online reservations, user reviews…. crap.
I need to go back to the drawing board.
Another finding, though, was the target audience. After reading through reports and stats on teens and tweens in the US, I figured my primary target audiences are girls between the age of 14 and 17. According to eMarketer, about 82% of teenagers used social networking sites in 2009. The mobile penetration rate for 17 year old girls is 83% in 2009, followed by 16 year olds (82%), 15 year olds (79%) and 14 year olds (76%). Teens start sharing different beauty tips and tricks. I observed many fashion magazines for teens, and found that many articles are about how-tos and dos/dont’s.
Regardless of what I end up working on, one thing I want to hang onto is the idea of “sharing/collaboration” and “fun”. I want to go back to my original idea of Nail Art Recipes, a.k.a. Instructables for Nail Art, and elaborate from there. What are the features that can be especially tailored towards these trend-savvy teens?
Following is a list of feedback I got from my thesis class on February 20, when I presented the concept of Nail Party Planner for the first time. I have some overlapping feedback, because I just copied whatever was written on the index-card feedback.
- Great idea. But if I’m a user, I am not sure if I am willing to visit someone’s home for getting nails done for free. (Good point, Si. This is a feedback on one of example user scenarios I’ve talked in class. I said that if I decided to include amateur nail artists as part of vendors, those artists can either go to a client’s house or invite a client to their homes to offer affordable nail services.)
- Great idea to host it at a public space like nail salons.
- Visiting homes could be hard for strangers.
- Keep scope limited – catering may be too much for the initial launch (This is a feedback on one of example “possible features”, including a way to order catering and other stuff for the party)
- Check out Meetup API (Thanks, Cameron, for a good suggestion.)
- Different audiences have different needs
- Ability to reach people that are not on the mobile but also would like to get involved (I don’t know who wrote this note, but it is a valid opinion. I need to figure out who my primary target audiences are and find out the mobile phone penetration rate.)
- For your presentation, how are you going to engage people who are not interested in nail art? I can feel your enthusiasm, but I am really far away from the topic. How can I get involve in it? (Mustafa brought up a very good point. Thanks! This is definitely my challenge as I move forward. How can I make everyone excited about my idea?)
- Salons + parties matching
- Detailed wireframes and user scenarios