Sparkl, clean car wherevEr you are!
Sparkl is a startup founded by a mom, Lisa, that understands parents and busy professionals prefer to do other things than wait in line at the car wash. Her goal for Sparkl is to offer services that help common people and the environment.
Lisa created the idea of providing a service where users can easily schedule a car wash, whenever they want, from wherever they are, and at a time convenient for them.
THE CHALLENGE
Lisa contacted our group of designers to help improve her existing app and create a responsive design for her website. In addition to the website and app, our team was provided with photography and design elements that she had previously used. We had an opportunity to review what she currently had with her to understand what was working and what can be improved.
We continued our research by doing a competitive analysis. Some of the competitors we found most relevant include Washos, Envi, Spiffy, and Washé. We noticed some common themes throughout the competition.
Most of them use iconography or illustrations, they have a good use of hierarchy and they have a repetitive color palette that showed a similar mood. As you can see in the image, these are two different apps that look the same.
Through this exercise our team had more ideas from where to start with Sparkl. We knew we wanted to create a brand that is different from the competitors, more friendly and whimsical but still professional.
Getting Inspired
Design Principles
Show me, don't tell me
Visual cues make concepts easier to understand. We can create an experience that is simple and clear with the use of photography, icons, illustrations, and other graphics. Users are more likely to be drawn in and engage with the content.
So fresh, so clean
A Sparkl car wash is eco-friendly, refreshing, and clean. We want to convey this feeling when users visit Sparkl. This will be achieved with crisp and clean edges, visual hierarchy, and strategic spacing between elements. An eco-friendly design also avoids clutter and fits neatly in its environment.
Finding a balance
Regardless of diverse occupations, genders and living styles, we want to be versatile and find the right balance for all Sparkl users. The design should be engaging and friendly, but also sophisticated and classy. It should neither be too feminine nor masculine. The look and feel will cater to all users and this will be executed through color treatment, photography, and font choices.
style tiles
At this point our team split up to work individually to give Lisa a variety of options. I started by finding inspiration on different websites and platforms, and then I created 3 style tiles.
I focused on whimsical, fresh, cool, and fun as the inspiration for this design. I took influences from the current design of Sarkl with the use of blue, but I incorporate green to represent eco friendly, and used rounded edges for more friendly look. I used more icons for visual interest which relates to our design principal show me don't tell me.
Strong use of icons and design elements with a bold color contrasts to guide the user through the experience. I wanted to show a change from the other designs to test out another concept with more depth and visual elements.
A more modern, sophisticated and professional look that relates to our design principal finding a balance. I used sharp angles to give a visual separation between elements. For the photography I used a treatment to have a more consistent color palette.
The client was unavailable to meet with us or provide feedback on my style tile options before the next presentation, so to stay on schedule, I moved forward with the style that best reflected the client's goals for the Sparkl app.
Giving Sparkl Style
I started working on some key screens of the mobile app and applying the style to them.
This was difficult because the client never had a ux design team the wireframes, so we were working with the website and app she already had. The client wanted to maintain the functionality of the app and site, so we maintained focused on the visual design.
In the first iteration of the design I noticed that the request process was too long. I thought of breaking that information to another page, but first wanted to see the reaction of the users during testing to confirm. They agreed that it was too long and caused them to lose interest in continuing the process and entering all the required information.
After user testing and the meeting with the client I applied some changes to the design and also create new screens like the onboarding, the major changes that I applied was changed the photos for whimsical icons and I made more emphasis on bundles, I maintain consistency on title colors and I increases body font.
For the bottom navigation I changed the icons to be more bold as the design and the other icons and also increase their size for more visibility
In the section of my washes and messages I add space for personalization with snapshots because the users really mention they need to know who is the person's thats will come to the place to clean their cars.
For the responsive design I work with the angel to have consistency with the app. I here I decide to have more use of the secondary colors to make it more visually appealing and to show difference in the sections.
The client already had a marketing site where she only explain about the brand and the services and just in the top the buttons to download the app. I consider if her business consist 90% for the app we should include a section of how the actual app looks like.
Also something really important for the client was the testimonials, in her version she had testimonials in a separate page where I make her notice not all the time people is going to search for that specific page. That's why I decide to add them in the first page where the user is “forced” to notice what other customers need to said about Sparkl.
Conclusion
This project was challenging because communication was difficult at times with the client, which led to us making some educated assumptions to move forward and ensure we stayed on schedule. That was difficult at the time, but it helped us focus on our design principles and processes and ultimately still produce strong work.
The best part of the project was seeing the client happy with the results and telling us how much she appreciated all of the new features to make the app better.