NAIL IT – YALDA NASIRIAN

WHAT IS NAIL IT?

NAIL IT is a company that provides 10-free, toxic-free, and fully vegan nail polishes with a sustainable and biodegradable recycling journey for both the products and their packaging process. Their products boost up the health of the nails with having no animal testing processes but also are all odor free and cruelty free.

THE STATUS OF THE PROJECT

The final prototype and wireframe are delivered to the client.

You can click here to check the Digital interactive prototype.

Objective

Users can purchase products online
Users can trust the online store
Users can find the promotions easily
Users can see nail polish colors on their hands
Delivering the message that the products are eco-friendly, non-toxic, cruelty-free, and gender inclusive. 

Design Goals

A smooth and convenient navigation
Ability to filter
Ability to check nail polish color on different skin colors
Easy online checkout

The Grand View Research indicates that the global nail polish market size was valued at 14.3 billion USD in 2021 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate ( CAGR) of 6.8% from 2022 to 2030. According to the Nail It’ market research, our customers are mostly individuals who need nail products for everyday use. Our main goal is to help the users select the “right” nail product for their skin tone and conditions by taking simple steps and having a pleasant online shopping experience. Let’s take control of our health and choose more eco-friendly and non-toxic options.

To further understand our customer’s concerns and needs, we conducted a series of surveys and interviews with them.

Business analysis is the first step in our discovery phase. We intend to answer questions such as:
What are your company’s values and mission?
How does this project contribute to the goals?
Is this the right time for your company to be pursuing this project?

Interview with Staff

Our team interviewed staff at Nail It who mainly deal with new customers in order to get a better insight into the problems currently faced by staff and new patients.
We Learned:
They do not trust online stores to purchase the products
They prefer to their nails at home but the final quality and the durability turn out to be unprofessional
They don’t have enough time for their nail polish to dry out
They always struggle to find the right colours for their skin tone
They prefer to use safe and non-toxic treatments

Company Mission

Providing excellent, comprehensive, and compassionate therapy service to the patients.
I realized that part of the problem is that staff do not believe the existing website can deliver patients’ needs as they find it not compassionate to refer patients to a website that is less than excellent.
We need to not only take input from staff for our design and design an excellent website but also, we need staff to be on board our design decision and truly understand our methodology and design decisions so that they can believe in the value of the website and feel comfortable referring patients to the website. 

Insights from the Survey

 
– 28 individuals as my research audience
– 60% needed nail polish for everyday use
– 75% were employed individuals 
– 67% of the customers, enjoyed having other nail care products within the Nail It platform
– 70% of the users were equally concerned about the cost, ingredients and quality of the nail products
– 68% of the audience have struggled to find products that matches their skin tone and other criteria
“ The primary user group is full-time working adults with a busy life style who are looking for affordable, eco-friendly and sustainable nail products that not only have good quality but also can easily be paired with different skin tones.“

MAJOR TAKEAWAYS

Adding the variety of skin tones was a limited criteria in most nail polish websites and Nail It wants to facilitate that.
Considering most competitors’ inability to satisfy customer needs, product filtering, customer reviews and gift services, mentioned criteria could be a potential business opportunity for Nail It.
By incorporating nail treatment sets into the website more users would be attracted to Nail It as a marketing platform.

Both the survey and interview questions were open-ended to assess customers’ expectations and pain points in relation to online shopping for individuals as well as the overall brand objectives.

COMMON RESPONSES

“While doing my nails at home, the final quality and the durability turn out to be unprofessional. ”
 
“I don’t have enough time for my nail polish to dry out”
 
“Why do we always have limited color options? I always struggle to find the “right” color for my skin tone”
“I look for safe and non-toxic treatments to boost the health of my nails”

The analysis of 11 similar nail polish and treatment websites, their features, and their workflows helped me to understand how to design a responsive information architecture and what features Nail It platform should be having.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Major Areas for Improvements

Adding the variety of skin tones was a limited criteria in most nail polish websites and Nail It wants to facilitate that.
Considering most competitors’ inability to satisfy customer needs, product filtering, customer reviews and gift services, mentioned criteria could be a potential business opportunity for Nail It.
By incorporating nail treatment sets into the website more users would be attracted to Nail It as a marketing platform.

After my research was completed, I came up with a lot of valuable data and I discovered many problems. The next step in our design process is to analyze the data and define the major design problems that should be addressed in our design. Using the data from research, I define the Persona and develop the User Journey and Scenario.

PERSONA

The persona is defined based on the data gathered during the discovery phase.

The website will be designed based on Suzy’s needs and preferences.

Meet Suzy

As a professional architect, Suzy is a busy boss lady and as the face of her firm she needs to be well put most of the times! She has been always going to nail salons for a quick in and out professional experience but following a healthy life style, she has switched to a vegan diet for the past two years. she prefers to purchase vegan nail polishes and hand care products to do her part in having a greener planet.

According to what Suzy wants

After understanding the user problems and needs, we went through several hours of brainstorming on how we can respond to the concerns. These are the critical possible solutions that we came up with.

User Problems

She would like to find her favourite nail polish in easy steps
It’s important for her to save time considering her busy life style
She is looking for a feature to see nail colours on her skin tone before the purchase
She needs an online store that could trust

Solution

Staying minimal: applying nature-inspired colors, minimal font styles, flat patterns, and maximizing negative space to avoid clutter and overwhelming the design help to follow a minimal approach and give the sense of hierarchy.
Saving time: Busy users with a hectic life-style can save time by using simplified interfaces, restricting features and elements that do no support user needs.
Designing a responsive platform to convey the message that nail products can be non-toxic and safe for both the users and the environment by offering eco-friendly deals.
Providing a good variety of color skim for nail polishes, show casing them on different color skin tones while offering different product sizes and integrating the camera feature “ Try me on” for the nail polishes can aid users to have more control over what they buy.

Scenario

Suzy lives in Toronto, ON with her husband and has a kid and dog. As a professional architect, Suzy is a busy boss lady and as the face of her firm she needs to be well put most of the times! She has been always going to nail salons for a quick in and out professional experience but following a healthy life style, she has switched to a vegan diet for the past two years. she prefers to purchase vegan nail polishes and hand care products to do her part in having a greener planet. She is looking for a non-toxic, sustainable and cruelty free nail polish that could check the color on her skin tone and could do check out online easily.

USER FLOW

Site Map

After running multiple card sorting sessions with our potential users, for designing the key screens, deciding on where the main features would be located and how they would be relating to each other, Nail Its’ site map was built.

Sketches, Wireframes, and Iterations

Low-Fidelity Prototype

Paper Wireframing (Low- Fi)

Following several iterations, I started the design stage by sketching out ideas for layouts and referencing the task flow, user flow, and sitemap. For better show casing the visual hierarchy, the low-fidelity wireframes were a quick and efficient method and helped us to structure the key screens for a responsive platform to aid users move forward with their purchases.

Creating low fidelity wireframes also ensured that chosen solutions worked well on screen and integrated seamlessly with one another.

Usability Testing Findings

1. The user would like to see nail polish colors like a color palette instead of color wheel in Nail polish page

Iterations

1. Change color palette from color wheel to color palett

Mid-Fidelity Prototype

To better illustrate the solutions to challenges and customers’ need, the latter sketches have been translated into a digital form of mid-fidelity wireframes in Figma, getting prepared for usability testing. The grayscale of the wireframe indicates that, I was mostly trying to focus on the functionality of the features.

Through this phase, several rounds of iteration have been performed before the final content was developed.