Overview
Plain and simple: An online learning platform for beauty professionals.
The ability to iterate faster and deliver a better experience to students. Go beyond the classes themselves and become a tool.
Context
The company has a focus on the beauty sector and offers two main products. The first product is a single subscription that provides access to multiple entry-level courses. The second product is a structured program that includes mentorship.
The primary product was initially named BeautyClass Flix, which was an online video platform offering numerous courses under a single subscription. However, as part of a restructuring of the company's offering, the product was scheduled to be rebranded as BeautyClass Pro.
Company
Beautyclass
Project Manager
Gustavo Veiga
Product Designer
Guilherme Bayara 👈 this is me
Full Stack Developer
Lucas Lopes
Goals
- Bring the app in-house
- Improve customer satisfaction
- Implement new features
Challenges
Most of the customers have low-end devices, with limited memory and no easy access to mobile data.
The first version of the platform was created by a third-party, and the company did not have access to its data to make the migration easier.
The team was small, and the budget was tight, which meant limited resources beyond pure manpower.
During the 2019 Black Friday promotion, the previous platform completely crashed, leaving users without access.
Project
Initially, the project was aimed at overhauling the video platform. However, as we encountered difficulties and obstacles along the way, the project evolved. Rather than developing a completely new solution, the emphasis shifted to iteratively improving and refining what we had already built.
My contribution
As the sole designer in a small team, I led the entire design process from start to finish. In addition to the project, I also took responsibility for cultivating a design culture across the company.
What it is
At its core, it is a video platform with multiple courses under one single subscription.
Solutions
The app experienced a complete crash during the Black Friday Sale, and we were in urgent need of a solution. At that time, we were still in the research and user testing phase of building a new app from scratch, so there was no quick fix available. After some brainstorming, we decided to utilize Vimeo's showcase feature as a temporary solution while we continued to work on a more permanent fix.
According to Lucas, our developer, we could develop a functional PWA quickly if we stripped it down to its core features. We collaborated to determine which features to include and which ones to remove, and within just a few days, we had a functioning PWA that we could refine in the future. This PWA served as a bridge to the app we were already working on.
After our user base transitioned to the PWA, we made it our default platform. This had several key advantages for us. Firstly, we were able to test features very quickly. Secondly, we no longer needed to take up much space on our users' phones. Two features that we tested inside the PWA - certificate downloads and product formulas - showed great promise and were later added to our app roadmap. Prior to this, certificates were manually sent and formulas only appeared in videos.
Process
How I worked
Collaboration was an essential aspect of our process, and I made sure to have tools in place to keep everyone in sync. We took a team approach to making product decisions and regularly bounced ideas off each other to find the best solutions, especially when facing challenges.
Despite the limitations imposed by the users' devices, we were able to enhance their experience by prioritizing the improvement of essential features. We focused on delivering a more reliable service and making the basics work better. For instance, we improved the category navigation to enable users to find their courses more easily. We also added a "Continuing watching" section, which resulted in increased completion rates across courses.
Learnings
The value of leveraging iteration both on the PWA and the native app, which helped identify potential pain points that would have been implemented in the native app.
Results
Final designs
Informed by the PWA the native app was born. The iterative philosophy was kept.
Impact
The implementation of the certificate alone reduced the number of support tickets by over 20% compared to pre-crash numbers.
After the PWA implementation and before the pandemic the churn rate was consistently declining.
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