Summary

Kenra Professional is a leading brand of hair products used by professional stylists across the globe. They aim to develop best-in-class products, that deliver superior and reliable results. The company is made up of three unique brands, Kenra, Kenra Platinum, and Kenra Color. While at Matchbox Mobile, I worked with Kenra Professional to create an in-salon, hands-free, educational experience to support stylists when transitioning to Kenra Color from another brand.

Research

I started this project, with a stakeholder kick-off meeting to discuss their goals, assumptions, and limitations. I then reviewed the existing printed guides to help identity what data needed to be surfaced, and the variables that could impact the outcome. Finally I talked to stylists to gain insight into the environment they work in and the challenges they face.

Findings

From my research, I learned some key findings which I translated into the following user stories:

Mixing colors is hands-on and can be mucky > “I need the experience to be completely hands-free so that I don’t get the device mucky.”

A salon can be a noisy environment > “I need the opportunity to get back on track if the Skill mishears me.”

Having grey hair makes a difference in how you mix the colors > “I need to specify if the client has grey hair or not so that I’m given the correct ratios.”

There are both Permanent and Semi-permanent dyes within the brand > “I need to specify whether I’m using Permanent or Semi-permanent dye.”

Colors are picked from a book because it gives a better idea of color > “I don’t need to see the color on the screen as I will be picking the color from the book.”

When transitioning to a new brand stylists need to know how to match a client's existing color > “I want to know how to mix up a good match to another brand's color using Kenra dyes.”

Each color has a reference code that is made up of letters, numbers, and slashes > “I need to understand how to read out the color code in a way that'll be understood.”

Ideation

After I’d gained a thorough understanding of the clients’ goals and the problems that I need to solve, I started sketching out ideas in the form of user scripts. I then used the Wizard-of-Oz method to read through these scripts with a colleague to highlight any areas that needed refinement.

A key area that I focused on was color conversion and how to ensure that the user can easily find the color they are after. I added an onboarding message for noise users, and a recovery path for when a users color request is not understood.

Once I was happy with the scripts I created a prototype using Voiceflow. This prototype was shown to professional stylists at a convention for hairdressers. Allowing us to gain a final round of feedback from real users before moving into development.

Outcomes