Purple nails!
In preparation for a commencement, I changed my nails yesterday to pure purple that matches with the color of my university logo. Put rose stickers to add some love =)
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?
As part of my user research, I have interviewed some friends and friends of friends about their nail art for the past 2 weeks. The most valuable information I gathered out of these interviews is the fact that the lack of nail-related information was NOT my users’ problem. It was a critical finding. I was about to create something that was completely off track. User interviews are scary… users tell you things, whether you want to hear it or not.
Here are some of the interview results:
<User Interview Data>
Interview notes from a previous week are here.
This week:
Interview 1
Date: February 19, 2010
Interviewee: Japanese female in her mid 20s
Occupation: JICA member
Background/Skills: She has been doing nails by herself for a couple of years.
Minutes:
- Resources: She reads nail-related features on weekly/monthly fashion magazines as reference for her new nail designs.
- Challenge: Cost. Glittery stones and decorative materials are often too expensive for her.
- Budget: She usually spends around JPY 2,000 (USD 21.00) per month for nails.
- Use of social networking tools: She checks mixi, Twitter and Facebook everyday.
- Frequency of service: Once every 1-2 weeks.
I think the best part of my thesis project is the user research. Yesterday, I went to my favorite nail salon Sakura to talk to one of the technicians there. Of course, I got my nails done too 
While getting my nails done, I tried documenting the process. I was SO glad I did it. It really taught me the challenge of documenting the process of nail designs. When one of my hands was occupied, I had to carefully hold my iPhone cam – and you know it’s not easy to push “take photo” button on iPhone camera with only one hand. The lighting wasn’t perfect at the salon that I had hard time focusing on my nails. When my both hands were occupied, there’s no way to take photos. So just by attempting to self-document my nails, I found so many issues to be considered.
Process & Findings
1. Preparation: I use Calgel, so there were several Calgel bottles. I chose to use three different colors – clear, glossy/transparent pink, and matte pink.
Calgel bottles and nail art samples
2. I also wanted to get the art. I decided to go with a combination of glittery circular holograms and pink gradation. It’s so hard to decide what colors to use! Later, I decided to add two stickers.
A photo of a bottle with different glittery holograms, placed on top of color samples.
3. Finished: I couldn’t take any good photos while getting my nails done. Obviously, this is the critical issue I need to solve if I am going to focus on the process and documentation of nail designs. How can you take photos when doing nails? se? Methods? Lighting? Do you need another person to support with documentation? Do all photos need to be consistent in terms of compositions and layout so it’s easier to follow the process?
Another important finding was the tools. The choice of tools for documentation makes a huge difference. I realized that photos I took with my iPhone camera didn’t come out well compared to ones taken by Canon IXY. What tools should people use for taking nail art process photos?
Finished nail design photo, taken with iPhone 3GS Camera. A bit blurry and unfocused.
Finished nail design photo, taken with Canon IXY 920 IS. Better focus and color.
A chat with a nail technician
I also did the first official user interview. It was good, because I did not know what to ask. I’m definitely outlining questions next time I talk to other nail artists.
<User interview data>
Date: February 14, 2010
Interviewee: Japanese female in her mid 30’s
Occupation: Professional nail technician at Sakura Nail & Spa
Background/Skills: She has 5+ years of experience as a professional nail technician, excluding the time she spent at a nail art school. She was working at a salon in Shiga prefecture in Japan before moving to New York. This is her second year in the US. She works 5-6 days a week.
Minutes:
- Salon staff at Sakura are always trying to improve their skills. They often organize nail art study sessions on Mondays, when the salon is closed.
- They don’t have Wikis for those study sessions.
- She also practices her skills with her own nails as well as her friends’.
- She receives nail-related information through friends and nail magazines.
- She said she usually hangs out with other staff during spare time.
- The salon recently launched a Facebook group. But it hasn’t been updated yet (staff are too busy?).
- She had an awesome Hello-Kitty nail with heart-shaped glittery holograms. She said she waited for weeks to get those heart-shaped holograms, because they were sold out.
Thoughts:
- Group study session is an interesting idea. How about a nail-specific Meetup site? I know that some products (especially glossy powders, holograms, stickers…) are pricy. You end up using only a small portion of them. A group can purchase many nail products and share them at study sessions. Sessions can be a paid ones to cover the expense.
- Do staff want ways to keep track of their progress? (i.e. “I learned 3D sculpting today”, etc.) Don’t they need a “wiki” platform for keeping all documentations from those study sessions?