Tatwoo: the Best Way to Get Your Next Tattoo
By: Sean Phelps
Tags: UX, Web Design, Tattoo, User Experience, UI

After our research, it was time to talk to some real, live people about their experience with tattoos. There’s only so much information we could glean by looking at websites and apps.

After a mildly successful screener survey, we ended up interviewing 17 users, 9 of which identified as female, 8 identified as male. Fourteen (82%) of the interviewees had 5 or more tattoos, and 94% said they’re going to get more in the future. All in all, the people we interviewed were definitely potential users for the Tatwoo platform.

After affinity mapping our data from our interviews, we came across some great pieces of information and even more anecdotes from our interviewees about their tattoo journey.

One of the key points of our development process was deciding primarily which platform we would design for. A majority of our interviewees said that they prefer to search for designs on their laptop or desktop computer. Surprisingly, they also said that they prefer to communicate with artists on desktops as well, since communicating with an artist tends to be more involved than quick text messages. So, having been told by our interviewees that desktop is the preferred platform for searching and communicating, along with being told by Anito that he would be focusing on developing a dedicated mobile app in the near future, we decided that we would design around the desktop experience.

I personally found it quite eye-opening that literally everyone had problems with searching for artists and designs.

When asked about what things were most important to them when it comes to getting a tattoo, the responses were crystal clear. The most important thing to every single tattoo dreamer and tattoo haver was style. The design of the tattoo needed to match what the interviewee had in mind. After that, the most important need was having to feel a personal connection with the artist. But, after that, nothing else really matters. Price, artist, location, and time to get the tattoo, both in the chair and waiting for an appointment, who cares, as long as the interviewee got the tattoo they wanted in the end.

The first bit of difficulty that every user ran into was finding an artist that they liked. The majority said they look for artists through Google or Instagram, with a good portion more saying that they ask their friends for referrals. An overwhelming majority of the interviewees expressed some level of frustration regarding the difficulty of finding an artist that suited them and their needs.

A few interviewees mentioned problems with price transparency. Which, at first, might seem a bit contradictory to everyone saying that style is always more important than price, but when asked to explain further what they meant, they weren’t so upset with the lack of price transparency but more about being surprised by prices. It’s common knowledge that tattoos can quickly become expensive, but when an interviewee was caught off guard by a high price for a tattoo, it was a turn off. But, when presented with that same price in advance, say, when searching for an artist, they were much more okay with it. Who would’ve thought, people don’t like feeling like they’re being taken advantage of!

We found the most common way of getting in touch with artists and their studios was through email and Instagram direct messages (DMs). A few interviewees preferred to meet a prospective artist for the first time, which, pre-2020 would have been just fine. Thankfully, that was a definite minority, but we decided that a built-in video chat feature would fill that gap. A few of our interviewees also had issues with accessibility. One preferred to talk on the phone because it was difficult to read, and others preferred the opposite: a text-based chat function due to difficulties hearing.

Beyond that, the biggest reoccurring problem that our interviewees were mentioning was communication, or lack thereof. Sometimes artists would straight-up not respond to emails, and it was notoriously difficult to get well-known artists to respond to inquiries through Instagram DMs. Funnily enough, Instagram DMs were the most common way that people message artists, despite its relatively low success rate.

When looking for tattoo ideas and inspiration, users used a lot of resources to help them find ideas. Anything from Google, Pinterest, Instagram, and other image search platforms were used. Users weren’t mad at having to use multiple platforms to find inspiration, but they did express their frustration at having to go to multiple places to find what they want in the same way they were frustrated that there was no easy, centralized way of searching for tattoo artists.

When we boiled down all of our user’s problems to a few key points, the direction we needed to take Tatwoo became clear. We needed to create a centralized platform to find tattoo ideas and artists, while at the same time creating a positive feedback loop that would encourage and reward artists that respond to prospective clients quickly. Secondly, it needed to have a scheduling feature, as well as a way to view the cost of tattoos.