Building a scheduling app for service providers

This project was kicked off by my barber, who was struggling to find a scheduling service that was both cost effective and not reliant on a laptop. He ran most of his business from his phone, so he wanted a tool designed to be mobile first.

The tools on the market relied heavily on a desktop experience, and came with features he didn’t need. That meant paying for more than he used.

Even though my barber was the primary user and stakeholder, the app also had to work for his customers. So I carried out research to find out what customers wanted from a booking app, and what would encourage them to actually use it.

This meant desk research into how similar apps work, as well as interviewing real customers.

On other projects I’ve had expert engineers to work with. On this one, I had to do everything myself, and I’m not an engineer by trade. That limited how far I could push the designs.

As a result, the design had to work much harder to solve customer experience issues, instead of relying on complex technical solutions. It pushed me towards an app that was not only simple and easy to use, but also easy to maintain from a technical point of view.

The app was designed for sole traders, who may not have large budgets for business tools. My barber specifically wanted to spend no more than £25 a month running it, so every feature had to be cost effective.

This meant being careful with every data download and upload. At each step, users see exactly the data they need and nothing more, which reduces the need to reload and refresh. Notifications and messages were also kept to a minimum. As a designer, balancing user needs against a strict budget was an exciting challenge.