Tatter is a concept for a new tattoo app that helps connect users with tattoo artists. Users are able to browse artists in a customizable feed based on style, location, and various other factors. As well as share their own tattoos with their friends and discover what artists their friends have gone to. Tatter offers another fun way to discover artists with the artist swiping game, which is essentially like tinder for tattoo artists.
ROLE/TASKS
UX/UI Designer
Concept Development
Competitor Analysis
User Research
Wireframing
Prototyping
User Testing
TOOLS
Figma
Usability Hub
Optimal Sort
Canva
Pen & Paper
CLIENT/DATE/DURATION
Career Foundry UX Immersion
November, 2020 – May, 2021
Problem Statement
People need a way to find a tattoo artist they love because tattoos are permanent. We will know this to be true when people are satisfied with tattoo decisions and have no regrets.
Goals
- Enable users to find and connect with tattoo artists that they otherwise would not have.
- Give users the tools to discover exactly the kind of artist that they want.
- Help users make a final decision that they will be happy with for the rest of their life.
Competitor Analysis
SWOT Profile
User Interviews
I conducted 3 interviews with people that represented the target demographic of my app and had some familiarity with the process of finding a tattoo artist.
After getting several interesting quotes from each interviewee I wrote them down on sticky notes and used affinity mapping to sort them into key categories to help me get a better understanding of the tattoo getting process.
User Personas
At this point I was able to create two user personas that would help keep my designs personal with the end user in mind.
User Flows
After I created the two personas I created user flows based around each of the their goals. This process helped me design something that would more easily help people accomplish their tasks in the real world.
Low-Fidelity Sketches
With my personas in mind I began to sketch out the first designs of my app. Although crude these early sketches were very important in visualizing how my app would look and feel.
Mid-Fidelity Sketches
After the initial sketches I further increased the fidelity building the first prototype digitally in figma. I took inspiration from existing apps such as Instagram and Tinder to give my app a familiar feel to users.
User Testing
Having designed the first interactive prototype for Tatter I began to conduct user testing. The tests took place over the coarse of a week with 6 participants, 4 of which were tested in person and 2 of which were conducted remotely via zoom screen sharing. I had each participant try and complete several simple tasks such as “liking” a tattoo, messaging an artist, and adding a friend.
For the most part the tests were successful with no major errors occurring. However there were several minor quality of life issues that the participants addressed after completing the test. For example a participant thought that the hearts above each image were unnecessary.
So I decided to remove the hearts from over the top of the images to reduce clutter. This adds an extra click when favoriting an image but I believe it improves the overall layout.
Visual Design
The next plan of action was to create a color palette and typography that would help keep the focus on the images of the tattoos and away from the interface itself.
Style guide
Primary Colors
Typography
UI Elements
High-Fidelity Designs
Having conducted user tests on previous iterations and creating a consistent visual style I was able to up the fidelity even more.
Conclusion
I learned a lot from this endeavor. I found it very interesting how the design evolves throughout the process from the initial idea to the final product, and how the design would continue to evolve post launch. By having the user personas (Josh & Jane) in mind the entire time I was able to keep their needs and goals a priority.
This helped influence the designs of certain functions such as the ability to view friend’s tattoos and see what artist(s) they used, which met Josh’s goal of finding an artist he can trust to give him his first tattoo. As well as the function to change the location of the artists that show up in the feed and of those that show up in the swiping game, a function that is in line with Jane’s goal of finding a new artist in her city.
Continuing to check back with them through research, interviews, and testing the final design is able to feel much more personal and practical.