Crabeye Concepts is a photography business in the DC, Maryland & Virginia area that aims to capture lifes beautiful moments.
Challenge
Without a website, users have to go directly to the client to inquire about their services, pricing and proof of work. This exchange can sometimes take a long time due to delayed responses. Also, some users tend to feel too familiar with the client and tend to ask for favors and price reductions that usually ends up lowering the standards of professionalism that needs to be maintained. This becomes frustrating for both the client and users.
Solution
To design a website that conveys the quality of clients work, pricing model, direct booking options and eliminate long back and forth communications between client and users, that leaves room for important communication and maintain a good balance of professionalism.
Role
AS the sole designer on this project, I was responsible for the entire design process and also building a responsive website.
The Process
Empathize
Research
Knowing what the client wanted from this website, I sought to understand what users would want out of a photographer in general. What were they looking for when they decide to book a session with a photographer. Gathering up this information was quite fast and easy since almost everyone needs professional photos taken at some point in life.
I found out that users usually pass on photographers that:
1. Don’t have their work displayed or readily available to check out.
2. Do not have clear pricing. One user stated she hates having to request for quotes.
3. Don’t have a way to book directly online or see availability of photographer.
4. Are not clear or detailed with what their services entails.
Competitive Analysis
With these findings, I was able to narrow down the key focus points for this website.
1. Showcase clients work in a way that shows quality and captures users attention.
2. Include pricing information that shows clients what each service entails.
3. Integrate a booking system where users can book directly online.
4. Along with booking integration, show clients availability during the booking process.
Define
Persona
surveying users during the research phase helped me come up with as user profile.
Ideate
Task Flow
Once I had my user defined, I moved on to ideas. I started with creating a task flow of what a user can expect when they click on the website.
Design
Sketches
Based on the established pain points and key focus, I sketched out my ideas and then created low-fi wireframes so I can have a guide in the right direction when I was ready to prototype.
Wireframes
Home Page
Portfolio Category Page
Pricing Page
Booking Page
Package Booking Page
Date Booking Page
About Us Page
FAQs Page
Contact Us Page
Prototypes
Moving forward with the process, I turned my wireframes into prototyped. Since I was going to be building the function website as well and I was already familiar with the web building platform I intended to use (Squarespace), it was easy to know what features were available on the platform and what I could and couldn’t achieve with it.
Clickthrough Prototype
*Make sure to watch in HD
Interactive Prototype
This interactive prototype has functioning navigation bar and logos on all pages. The logos on all pages brings you to the home page. It also has the functionality of going through the process of viewing the clients work; Homepage > Portfolio > Maternity + Baby > Emelia .
After viewing the gallery, our user can go to book a maternity session and view calendar that shows clients availability using the Booking page > Deluxe Maternity > Next .
Conclusion
Once the prototype was completed, I reached back out to the initial users I interviewed to receive feedback on the website. All users unanimously agreed that all things being equal, they would absolutely go with a photographer that has a website, one that showcases their work well and makes the booking process so seamless. It made them feel like the photographer put a lot of effort and care into their business and went the extra mile to make sure users have all the information they could possibly need to make an informed and confident decision to choose them.
Also, the client gave me feedback on how smooth interactions and transactions have been. She has seen a decrease in long drawn communication about prices, availability and proof of work.
After Thoughts
This case study was quite rewarding seeing how much of a big impact it yielded for our client and users. Although I am satisfied with the outcome, I do believe the platform I used was limiting in its features and customizations hence, a more simple feel to the website. In the future, I hope to revamp this web design together with a web developer to make more customizations to it especially the pages that had lots of white spaces.