*baby pink*

As of May 2, 2010, my thesis “beta” site has eight members now. It was five last week. I am happy that the number has increased even by a bit.

Screenshot of a landing page, May 2, 2010

My thesis Twitter account now has 78 followers, most of whom are either DIY nail artists/professional nail art technicians or amateur with some interests in nail art (don’t do nail art by themselves, but go to nail salons or have friends who work at salons). I really hope some of them come to my site and try it…

I have set a launch date for the beta version of my thesis project: Monday, April 12, 2010. Yes, that is in two days. I decided that I wanted to have some time for user testing so I can incorporate the user feedback as part of my thesis presentation.

Since last week, I have been spending most of my time adjusting the layout for each page, translating documents from English to Japanese, and adding teaser contents including nail art photos, YouTube videos, and several blog posts about the nail art trends.

My initial visual goal is to establish a site that feels friendly, open, and girly-dreamy (considering 96% of my target audience is females). I presented my half-baked thesis website during my thesis class on Wednesday, and received good feedback I needed to re-adjust the look and feel of the site.

Nailist Salon's old landing page - thumbs down

Here is a list of comments received in response to my site’s landing page (see above screen shot):

• Black menu bar is a little bold.
• A lot of text – overwhelming
• Maybe include illustrations of people or faces
• Maybe you need a mascot for your salon? That would be very girly and Japanese.
• The site looks like selling products. Show an image of hands.
• Splash page?
• Simplify the landing page.
• If you simplified the top banner, it might be better.

Redesigning the look

I was especially concerned about a heavy top navigation and text-oriented contents. I also thought it was interesting that one person suggested the site “looks like selling products”, because I used illustrations of nail products (nail polishes and a gel bottle) at the top banner. In response, I decided to use other materials – hands – to replace the old illustrations. I also adjusted the spacing between each section within a page to give more breathing space for users. I changed the background color of top navigation bar from solid black to light pink that matches with the top banner.  I reduced the amount of text across the site for easier skimming.

Nailist Salon's revised landing page

Right now, I am heavily concentrated on debugging. I need to make sure that every step, from signing in and filing up profiles to posting photos and logging out, works smoothly. Tomorrow I will do the browser testing, which is always the trickiest part.

Testing plan

On Monday, I will announce the availability of Nailist Salon via Twitter and Mixi. After the launch, I will be monitoring the site traffic, users behavior, and will ask for their feedback (if I managed to get any users!). To analyze the usability of my site, I am planning to video record how users navigate through my site with a help of my Japanese friend. I will only have two weeks for user testing before summarizing my experience with the site for the final thesis presentation in May, but I hope to get out something tangible as I move forward!

I thought of using CodeIgniter framework for my thesis project, but I had been worried that CI might not be good for building user forums. I found other services such as ExpressEngine, but they are paid ones, which I want to avoid for the first prototype.

Then I found Joomla, an open source php-based CMS. It offers pretty easy-to-understand admin panel, and allows to use different extensions and plug-ins for customization. I can tweak CSS to control the front end. It seems that I can definitely add AJAX and other components if necessary. It supports Japanese language. There are over 10 extensions for building user forums. Many extensions are available for media sharing and user profile management. The most encouraging part is that there is a list of example social networking websites, including GabberTube, a video-sharing community site, and MTV’s Quizilla, MTV’s community site for polls and quizzes. Their websites look pretty solid and have features I want to have on my website. I went over some video tutorials for Joomla too, and felt comfortable with the instructions. I think I am going to go with Joomla. Now it is time to download the Joomla package and start testing the framework.

After a midterm thesis presentation, I had to re-consider the choice of web framework. Many people responded to my initial selection of Drupal, suggesting that Drupal has a huge learning curve. They were right. This week I spent some time going over tutorials for Drupal, and concluded that it indeed has a complex structure. So I started hunting for the alternative.

PHP/MySQL web framework comparison. Source: http://www.phpit.net/demo/framework%20comparison/chart.php

Given that I want my framework to be based on PHP, I looked into major PHP-based applications including CakePHP, CodeIgniter, Symfony, and Zend. It seems that Cake and CodeIgniter(CI) are the two major players in the php framework battle.  Cake offers more automated and well-structured framework, while CI offers light-weight and flexible solution with a low learning curve. A web developer Paul Shen makes a good comparison between the two in his blog. A developer Ekerete makes a good point in his blog about the benefit of using CodeIgniter by comparing it to Zend. Another developer Jonathan Snook supports Cake in his blog. I went to Cake and CI’s websites, checked their basic MVC structures, and felt more comfortable with the documentation and tutorials for CI. So I may start with CI and see how it goes.

For a quick site development, there are online platforms for creating social networking sites, such as Ning and BigTent. If I want to focus on widgets or apps, there is OpenSocial. I created an account for Ning to see how they structure their platform. It’s an easy, one-click solution, but does not have enough flexibility for controlling UI and functions. I will come back to Ning if I end up screwing up my framework development, and need a quick fix to my project. OpenSocial may be an interesting platform to use if I want to add some widgets or add-on features to my site.

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

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?