Céleste Artist Platform

OVERVIEW

Céleste is the only platform tailor-made for professional MUAs (makeup artists). It offers a premium platform that enables makeup artists build impactful portfolios, connect with new clients and network with industry leaders. As the Experience lead, I led User Research and Experience Design of the platform by conducting user interviews and running a comprehensive market analysis that informed user flows and the experience design for MVP launch.

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THE CHALLENGE

Disrupting the beauty  industry

Céleste believes people should invest the same amount of research into a makeup artist as they do a tattoo artist. Makeup may not last forever, but the impression you do on someone does.

Thus, Céleste wants to disrupt the artist booking experience by bringing a premium servicing both for makeup artists and clients. And the biggest challenge is to create a platform that can replace the role of agencies and become the go-to-place for well established artists to showcase their work, network within beauty industry and grow their businesses.

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THE PROCESS

1. Market analysis and ethnographic research

As the experience lead, I oversaw and conducted an ethnographic research with 20+ artist and client interviews. The data helped us to better understand  current journeys, needs and identify biggest pain points and areas of opportunity.

‍Based on the research findings,

• Created the value proposition of the product, and an overall product strategy.
• Identified different dimensions in the artist and client experiences to establish the key personas and their journeys.

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• In conjunct, worked on an extensive analysis and auditing of the competitive landscape and identified biggest areas of opportunity.
• And finally, made feature recommendations and conducted a feature testing with artists and clients to define the hierarchy of needs in the digital offering.

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HYPOTHESIS

We started the research process with the hypothesis that self-employed makeup artists were in need of a centralized tech solution to run their businesses.

However, we found that artists will only adopt a new platform if we are able to deliver additional value.

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• Artists want more work for more pay
• Artists need job and payment security
• Artists want to have a community
• Artists want to keep learning and perfecting their craft

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A deeper dive into current artist and client journeys  

Key Findings and Areas of Opportunity

• Existing services offer low rates, high commission rates and poor quality projects which enforces artists to go by their own network.
• Existing platforms are either very complex or poorly designed
• Pricing and servicing requirements of current platforms are not appealing to established artists.

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2. Identifying personas and user journeys

Based on user research findings, I’ve identified different dimensions in the artist and client experience to establish the personas and their journeys. These journeys informed us about user needs and the platform information architecture.

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3. Sitemap and User flows

Once we had a clear understanding of the immediate needs and features, I’ve worked on the sitemap, user flows and wireframes to establish solution components and  interaction models for the MVP launch.

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THE SOLUTION

Designing a simple yet premium experience

Informed by the research, I've worked on building an experience that offers artists the ability to showcase their work and book appointments with seamless payment methods. The platform, enables artists retain their independence and individuality while taking part in a community that motivates, elevates and celebrates their work.

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Features

For the MVP, we wanted to keep the booking and payment system very flexible and simple. Thus, incorporated an automated bot system to ease the flow and make it more conversational.

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1. Homepage that acts as a content hub and keeps being updated with new artist spotlights and new trends

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2. A very user- friendly sign up process and an empowering artist dashboard to keep artists informed and connected at all times.

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3. Conversational booking process, in message booking approvals and secure payment systems without that keeps user privacy at the core

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4. A unique, customizable and premium profile page

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5. Artist and client dashboard that keeps business management, communication and payments all in once place and enables artists create and update premium portfolio and bio pages.

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6. A smart filtering system for accurate artist matchings