Flow Bodyworks Massage and Yoga is a privately owned massage and yoga studio that has been operating since August 2012 by its owner, Erin Porter. She is a graduate of the Asheville School of Massage & Yoga and the Thai Institute of Healing Arts. At Flow Bodyworks, she specializes in therapeutic eastern massage modalities and western modalities.

Role: UX Researcher and UI Designer

Duration: 12 Weeks

Objective: Create a responsive web design from an existing website

A lot of user's state that they are not sure what yoga and/or massage session may be best for their unique needs and goals. In return, it can be quite challenging to book an appointment online and can create anxiety, frustration, and confusion.

Discover the pain points users experience when trying to book a yoga and massage session online. Also, understanding what entices a user to want to sign up for an appointment online and how to gain loyalty.

Participants have previously signed up for a yoga class and/or massage session online.

3 women (ages 21-45)

2 men (ages 19 & 35)

· All participants state that the location, environment, price, and credentials seem to be the most important when purchasing a yoga/massage session online.

· All participants state that they believe that a lot of information about the classes and therapy session is a high priority as they want to know what to expect when arriving at the faciality. They also want to feel safe and trust the health care professional.

· 2 out of the 5 participants stated that discounts would be a determining factor when choosing a session online. However, most participants stated that a discount would be nice but not expected.

· All participants agreed that a membership program would be beneficial.

· One participant stated that a free or discounted trial would encourage her to sign up for a membership program.

· All participants stated that it is vital to have images of the environment and the health care professionals. Seeing pictures of other clients is not as important.

· 2 out of 5 participants stated that ratings and reviews would affect their final decision when signing up for a session.

· All participants stated that it is vital to have images of the health care professionals displayed.

I wanted to gain valuable insights into industry standards, user expectations, opportunities to stand out, and understand areas for improvement. Ultimately, I wanted to create a more effective and successful design.

I wanted to create a map to identify the users' needs, preferences, goals, and pain points. By clustering similar insights, I was able to gain a deeper understanding of the target audience and their motivations, allowing myself to address the user needs effectively while redesigning the existing website.

I wanted to create a tailored approach when designing, so I wanted to prioritize understanding the needs and preferences of the target audience for a more intuitive, user-friendly, and visually pleasing, and satisfying to use design. Thus, resulting in higher levels of engagement and user satisfaction.

It was vital that I had a clear vision of the business, user, and the shared goals in order to align all of the objectives together for optimal designing. I wanted to ensure that I was able prioritize features and functionalities that are most likely going to deliver value and create user satisfaction.

I wanted to prioritize and organize features that I deemed to be the most important to the least important. This would help ensure that I created features based on the user interviews, would be the most valuable and note-worthy.

I wanted to create a very organized, yet easily comprehensive wireframe for a very detailed and tailored experience for the user.

I wanted to create a very categorized and detailed flow so that way the user can easily schedule an appointment for a yoga and/or massage session with no confusion. I also wanted the user to be able to seamlessly view the reviews, about to the therapist, and how to conveniently contact the establishment for any questions and/or concerns.

I wanted to create a flow where the user can easily view the different types of yoga and massage sessions in-depth offered by the establishment before scheduling an appointment. I wanted to ensure that the user can receive a sense of trust, clarity, professionalism, and ease.

I wanted to establish a layout and structure of the design, to ensure that I had a clear idea of how I wanted the application to visually look like and function. This would also help with any adjustments needed in the future and minimize time.

Since I was recreating an already existing website, I wanted to honor the client and not change too many factors unless requested. However, I felt it necessary to change quite a few elements and add in some features to improve the overall design and functionality of the website. I did this to ensure a more visually pleasing, easily accessible, and fully comprehensive design.

I decided to honor the client's original color scheme with an exception of adding in blue and green. I added those two colors in particular to promote calmness and serenity while also refreshment and rejuvenation. However, I changed the text for more of a professional, up-scale look, yet friendly look.

Success metrics will be based on overall user satisfaction. This includes the visual design, l functionality, and completion of each task with a score of 80% or higher.

All users were able to complete the tasks in a timely manner and was able to complete each task efficiently and effortlessly.

I enjoyed this process a lot because I am also passionate about health and wellness, so I enjoyed improving a website that supports a local health care processional.

This project also made me reflect on how much I would try to have the client involved in the process to make sure I am not taking anything away that the client may deem as vital to keep. I tried to include almost everything from the original website but in the future, I would like to have more meetings with the clients to understand their thoughts as well. I would do this after conducting the research studies and participants interviews so that I can present all the findings and give the client extensive ideas on what I would like to change, improve, and add-on/off for maximum user satisfaction.

This was a challenge, but a fun challenge to create a desktop and mobile version. It was more time-consuming but also incredibly satisfying to have all the frames match up on the mobile and web version for accuracy. The participants also stated that they appreciated the likeness as well.

The main lessons from this project were how to create a responsive web design that is visually pleasing, easy to navigate, and comprehensive. In addition, also understanding what entices a user to want to sign up for an appointment online and how to gain loyalty. Lastly, This project made me understand how important it is to research competitor websites to provide inspiration and to also understand different structures of various websites to achieve the desired effects.

Original Version

Updated Version