Inkontrol is an essential tool that was designed specially for tattoo artists who are looking to improve their client management system, finances and scheduling through a reliable system that will enhance their workflow and reduce time spent dealing with unimportant tasks.
Project overview
Description
Duration
Jan – April 2022
My role
- UX Designer
- Visual Designer
- Graphic Designer
Responsibilities
- Paper and digital wireframing
- Low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototyping
- Accounting for accessibility
- Iterating on the design
Problem
Some tattoo artists, specific the ones who work by themselves, usually manage their client list, appointments, payments and their own expenses by hand, which make things complicated to keep track of everything, so they end up wasting – most of the time, quite a lot – time they could be using to just do what they love.
Solution
To provide a solid system they can use long term to track every aspect of their profession easily without the hustle of having to deal with confusing spreadsheets or physical notebooks, while also providing future updates, with features like restocking, integration with a new marketplace with possible clients, and a lot more to come.
Understanding the user
User research
I conducted interviews with some colleagues to understand their frustrations and how that could be overcome. The user group, in this case, is young tattoo artists who are starting their career.
The user group demonstrated some basic concerns about how easy to use the app would be and how they could merge with the system they already had.
User pain points
Time wasted
Users demonstrated they were unhappy about having too much time being wasted managing client list, appointments, payments and their own expenses by hand.
WhatsApp integration
Users mentioned they would love to have some kind of integration with WhatsApp – which is the main communication app that they use – for sending invoices and negotiating with clients.
Importing clients
Users said that having a method of syncing their contact list with the app would almost detrimental because most of them already have a stablished client list they would like to keep.
Keeping records
Users said that they care about keeping their own personal record of their work, so they would like to know more about how they could do that.
Personas
Name: Joel
Age: 29
Education: Bachelor of Arts
Hometown: Curitiba/PR – Brazil
Family: Single
Occupation: Tattoo Artist
Joel is a guy who always admired and love to see the beauty in the world. He defines himself as a visual explorer, meaning that he knows the true value of acquiring baggage when it comes to creativity.
Joel is kind of a nerd. He loves video games, music, anime, all the good stuff, pretty much. Other than that, he sees himself as just a regular middle-aged guy.
He’s constantly trying to improve his work and optimize processes, but, of course, without feeling like a robot and losing the warm touch he has working with his clients and with profession overall.
- To build some kind of gallery with every single piece of his work.
- To humanize as much as possible the contact with his clients.
- To have more time for exploring this beautiful world.
- “I feel really bad when I can’t remember which tattoo that I did on a specific client”
- “Back in the day I used to keep track of my works posting them on Instagram, but not every client agreed to let me take a picture so I’m kind of dealing with an incomplete gallery nowadays.”
Name: Emma
Age: 23
Education: High School
Hometown: Grigny/PAR – France
Family: It’s complicated
Occupation: Tattoo Artist
Emma lives in a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris by herself and her cat, which also is called Emma – I tried asking her the reason she named her cat with her own name, but she looked at me and didn’t say anything, so I got a little scared and assume she didn’t want to share that information.
She didn’t grow in a financial stable home, and is the eldest of four brothers, which is directly connected to her love for the arts, since Emma had to explore and be creative in order to provide some kind of entertainment for her brothers.
Emma doesn’t like to let people down and is very careful with everything she does.
- To feel safe and secure about storing her client’s data.
- To dedicate all her time to just tattooing without caring about managing stuff.
- To not have an assistant.
- To always have to remember which appointments that she has for the day.
- To find a way to find more clients.
Starting the design
Storyboard
1
Gets annoyed by manually having to keep track of all his finances, appointments and clients.
2
Decides to look for someone he can hire as an assistant.
3
Realizes that for now he doesn’t have enough income to pay for an assistant.
4
Go online again and searches for another solution.
5
Finds an article talking about how Inkontrol improved their work routine.
6
Decided to download and check out the app.
User flow
Paper wireframes
My goal here was to try to figure out how I could organize the home screen and make sure the “next appointment” alert was visible enough in order to start making sure if my Information Architecture (IA) was correct and intuitive for the users.
Digital wireframes
The entire concept was around giving user access to the most important features with just a few taps on screen. The product details screen specifically was intended to be simple yet highly customizable by the users so they can adjust categories according to their needs.
Refining the design
Iteration
After conducting another round of interviews, I observed that some kind of WhatsApp integration would be mandatory for users feel comfortable going back and forth between apps without feeling annoyed while doing that, and also since WhatsApp is already really consolidate in Brazil, I don’t believe I should force clients into ignoring other platforms asking them to contact their clients only through Inkontrol, specially before we implement the marketplace and more features.
Style guide
Utilizing black & white felt like the best pick for Inkontrol’s branding. The lack of colors created an aesthetic that tattoo artists are already familiar with, evoking some feeling the app belongs to their workflow. The typeface of choice is San Francisco Pro, a neutral, flexible, sans-serif typeface which is also the system font for iOS, iPad OS, macOS and tvOS. I believe that since Apple ecosystem is the preferable choice between artists, trying to bring a font that express a native look would be the best choice to enhance the overall simplistic look of the app.
Mockups
More customization and features that will improve general navigation were implemented as well as a better hierarchical structure.
Accessibility considerations
Elements that will make everyone’s life better while using Inkontrol:
- Simple to understand icons and gestures;
- Easy methods for data entry;
- Consistent hierarchy, labels, layout, contrast and template.
Takeaways
Impact
Inkontrol tries to bring order to tattoo artists’ lives and was specially designed to meet the needs of all professionals in the field, from beginners to masters. We believe tattoo artists should have a solid management system that they can rely on, so they can spend less time dealing with stuff they don’t want to.
What I learned
During the process of designing Inkontrol, I believe that the same lesson I learned while designing Urik turned out to be the most important one again, which is the concept that initial ideas need time to breath and evolve.
That’s a wrap!
Thank you for reviewing my work on Inkontrol!
Don’t hesitate to contact me if you feel like I can provide any value to your projects.