Esther
An all-in-one client managing app for estheticians that helps keep track of client progress.
Overview
Esther is my conceptual client management app for professionals who specialize in cosmetic skin treatments. This app assists estheticians with more than just booking and charging clients like other common apps. It saves their clients' information, helps keep track of progress, and provides a communication tool between client and esthetician. The most innovative part of this app is that it allows estheticians to take and share progress photos and send skin care regimens to their clients. By having visual and written reminders of the progress they make with the ongoing treatments, it would foster a continued relationship and mutually beneficial investment between esthetician and client.
Why Esther?
My mother was a very skilled esthetician and owned her own skin care practice for 14 years until the pandemic hit. She was old school and kept an appointment book, client forms in her file cabinets, and her client reach was through word of mouth. Unfortunately, probably due to her lack of online marketing, her business struggled and couldn't survive past 2020. Nowadays, every business has an online presence for discoverability, but now the struggle is client retention. This personal project is something I would like to see available to help estheticians stay ahead of the game.
Solving Problems
Readily Available Information
Estheticians have many clients to keep track of, and most of these clients get treatments every 2 to 6 months if they are repeat clients. So remembering or having to look up details of their last visit can be time consuming especially if that information is not saved electronically. This app would need to be HIPAA compliant, so the client’s medical information remains private. The information needed from the client would be typical to that of normal skin consultations, where knowledge of medication and allergies would be crucial for estheticians to know.
Separation Between Professional and Personal Life
The esthetician will have the client’s contact information, but for non-urgent messaging they will use the messaging feature instead of texting which many professionals prefer over giving personal phone numbers to clients. The primary communication through this app would be related to skin progress, to see how the treatments have been improving the client’s skin condition, and to talk about product and routine.
Trusting the Process
This app adds value to the client's investment in professional treatments, which can be expensive, so creating a sense of worthwhileness is a very important design problem to address. So not only will this app encourage clients to continue with the same esthetician, they will be less likely to resort to online information that may be misleading. Estheticians are more reliable sources of information when it comes to skin care because the esthetician can professionally analyze their client’s skin and make personalized recommendations.
Research
I read about what it's like being an esthetician and got a good sense of the pros and cons of the career. I also created a 15-question survey for estheticians and used the data to help define the user and my goals with this app. One of my questions was about what apps they currently use for their business and what features they wish it had or could improve on. This info helps me with competitive analysis and what I could do to make my app meet their needs.
Persona
The main target audience would be licensed estheticians, and a secondary one would be their clients. For this project I focused on the esthetician’s version of the app because they are the primary user. The client’s experience is also important because they will be on the client version, and the usability for them would give direct feedback on the efficacy of the app, which would determine if continued usage and promoting is actually worth it for the esthetician.
Last updated 02/01/2024
This project is currently in progress