Overview

Sesami is the booking platform for commerce. Service businesses like beauty salons or wellness studios uses Sesami to book service appointments.

The Sesami Portal product feature has been one of the most voted features in our roadmap. The project team is a group consists of a UX designer, a product manager, two developers and one QA.

View The Figma Prototype

Problem Statement

Sesami management tools falls short in satisfying crucial business requirements. Key issues identified in this project include:

• Inability of the business users to access the admin data based on specific permissions. For example, a business area manager should be able to access parts of the system like reporting, comparing to a receptionist at a location.
• Individuals working for business, such as freelancers or contractors do not have any visibility in their schedule or access to perform certain actions to the appointments assigned to them, such as rescheduling them or cancelling them.
• The lack of multi-store management from a single account which is very important for larger implementations or multi-brand enterprises.
• The indirect access to Sesami for businesses, disrupts efficient booking management, causing frustration among staff and negatively affecting operational efficiency.

Design Process

We implemented a Double Diamond Design approach, drawing inspiration from the Design Thinking Methodology. Instead of adhering to a linear progression, we navigated through the project by flexibly transitioning between different stages as it developed.

Goals

Since Sesami is a Shopify app, its management tools are embedded within Shopify admin portal. The goal of this project is to provide an independent admin portal for our clients to access the back-office capabilities to perform functionalities, such as:

• Managing bookings
• Service and resource management
• API and marketing automation configuration

Disover

To gain insights into user pain points and develop effective solutions, our approach to discovery involved a comprehensive range of research methods, including:

• Heuristic Evaluation
• Competitive Analysis
• Interview

Heuristic Evaluation

During the heuristic evaluation phase, we conducted assessments of the current Sesami app inside Shopify admin, targeting usability concerns like findability, navigation, information clarity, consistency and standards, error prevention. These insights then informed our design decisions, aiming to create a smooth and user-friendly browsing experience for visitors.

Competitive Analysis

We performed a comprehensive competitive analysis involving other booking softwares. Through examination of competitors' admin portals, we unveiled industry-leading practices, drew inspiration, gained insights into user expectations, and tailored these valuable insights to seamlessly align with our objectives.

Key takeaways

• Importance of using cutting-edge front end technology to provide mobile-first and fast experience.
• Optimizing Information Architecture: Evaluating competitors' navigation aids in creating an effective information structure for easy user access.
• Understanding Design Trends and Best Practices: Analyzing competitors' UX/UI reveals current design trends and best practices for a modern and visually appealing admin portal.

Interview

We ran interviews with current clients and new prospects to learn more about their needs, expectations, and challenges of such system.

Users emphasized the following points:

• Users expressed interest in having an easy to use admin calendar to have an overview of their daily agenda and operation. What customers are checking in and what staff are serving them, in an optimized mobile experience.
• Users emphasized the importance of super fast system to navigate through calendar days and the appointments.
• They find access level control vital for their business. So each employee can access his or her agenda and data, instead of having to rely on the receptionist to manage all employees’ data.

Persona

To establish design tasks and effectively communicate the user information collected during research, we created our persona to tailor our design solutions to meet their specific requirements.

User Flow

In designing the user flow, our aim was to create a seamless and intuitive experience that effortlessly guides customers from browsing our selection to selecting the right plant ensuring user have a smooth and enjoyable shopping experience.

User Stories

• As a user I want to log in and access all my upcoming appointments in one place.
• As a user I want to have access to all team members info and be able to edit it.
• As a user I want to have access to all Services and be able to edit it by adding/removing team members and manage products and appointment details.
• As a user I want to make a booking by selecting a service, team member and date/time and customer and be able to confirm it.

The booking flow:

Develop

Ideation and Wireframing

After collecting the data in the Discover and Define phases, our team identified the primary pain points and crafted the right design solutions. The image below visually represents these identified user pain points alongside our proposed solutions:

Mid Fidelity Wireframe

Final Design