Client
Beauty & Hair
Project Timeline
16 Weeks
Location
Dallas, Tx
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Provide Beauty and Hair with a business plan for a new alternative hair e-tailer website to appeal to the desired unreached demographic(s) of Black/African American and other future fashion wig wearers.
InHAIRent Beauty - A Business Plan
My Roles
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Project Coordinator
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Financial Strategist
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Data Analyst/Scientist
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Company Branding Lead
STAR
Situation
The purpose of this project is to build a business plan for a new alternative hair e-tailer website to appeal to the desired unreached demographic(s) of black/African American + other future fashion wig wearers.
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As Beauty & Hair states that they “are the premier online source for all … alternative hair needs”, this project is to respond to the needs of black/African American wig wearers & future fashion wig wearers. Since Beauty & Hair mainly targets the medical wig wearer or those with diagnosed hair loss through wigs.com, this is a demographic that Beauty & Hair hasn’t targeted in a focused way. The team of students is to compile & pitch a strategic business plan for a new website targeting this demographic.
Driving Question: How might we appeal to the desired unreached demographic(s) of Black/African American and other fashion wig wearers?
This Project was taken through the Design Thinking Process of 5 Phases:
Empathize
Define
Ideate
Prototype
Test
Prototype
Test
Tasks
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Lead team through Branding Aspects like Brand Colors, Fonts, Brand Name, Brand Logo, etc
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Synthesized and Coded Qualitative Data
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Organized Data from Qualtrics Surveys
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Generated Who, What, Wows for Financial Metrics
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Competitor Analysis/Research (Financial)
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Reverse Engineering Problem Statements
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Created HMW for Areas of Opportunities under Pain Points
Activities
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Created Project Management Docs to outline the Project.
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Competitor Analysis
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Team Name Ideation - The Wiggles
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Developed 4 Personas within the project's Desired Demographic
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Developed 5 Problem Statements relating to the 4 Personas
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Brand Domain Brainstorming
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Company Foundations - Mission, Vision, Core Values
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Developed a Process Book for Each Step in the Project
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Company Positioning Maps
Results
We will present our Business Plan and additional Prototypes to the project stakeholders on Wednesday, May 10th, 2023.​
Phase One: Empathy
This phase involves gaining a deep understanding of the users' needs, feelings, and experiences related to the problem or challenge at hand. The aim is to develop a human-centered understanding of the problem and the user's needs.
Research Methods:
Through our research, we wanted to explore the customer journey, pain points, preferences, and desired outcomes in order to develop a business plan that would better reach our target demographic.
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Qualitative Research
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In-Person/Virtual Interviews with alternative hair shoppers
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In-Person/Virtual Interviews with vendors
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In-Person ethnographic research in physical stores
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Quantitative Research
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Qualtrics Survey
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Data Analysis of Responses through Excel - Coding
Competitive Analysis
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Website Analysis
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Social media benchmarking
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SWOT Analysis
Phase Two: Define
This phase involves synthesizing the insights and observations gained during the empathy phase to define the problem statement and develop a clear understanding of the user's needs, wants, and constraints. The aim is to reframe the problem statement from the user's perspective and establish a clear design challenge.
4 Personas Created
Pain Points Identified
Through the use of various research methods in the company and the Balanced Scorecard, I was able to identify three pain points:
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Convenience: Black and African Americans who wears wigs for conveience struggle to easily style and maintain their hair because they are confined by time and inconvience.
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Self Expression: Black and African Americans who wear wigs for self expression feels limited in their variety because there is a lack of accessibility and specialization in hair alternatives.
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Protection/Education: Black and African Americans who wear wigs for protection have a high dependency on third-parties due to a lack of awareness and education in hair.
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Professionalism: Black and African Americans who wear wigs for professionalism have low confidence due to the lack of community help and awareness of hair alternative options.
Overarching Problem Statement
Black and African Americans who wear alternative hair are limited in the variety in hair alternatives, products, and education due to a lack of focus & specialization in products and brands. A lack of specialization in turn makes products and services more expensive.
Phase Three: Ideate
This phase involves generating a wide range of creative and innovative ideas to address the design challenge identified in the define phase. The aim is to encourage divergent thinking, explore multiple possibilities, and develop new and innovative solutions.
Branding
When creating our brand, we wanted it to represent the customer, not us. Everything that has gone into our branding has been built on the findings as foundations set by the needs, desires, gaps, and pain points discovered in our humanized research. This has shifted us from a website that sells wigs to a website that helps people pursue a healthy relationship with their hair and identity.
Logo
Company Name
Color Palette
Slogan
Fonts
Our Team Collectively Decided Upon:
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Company Name - InHAIRent Beauty
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Slogan - Captivate your Crown
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Mission - InHAIRent Beauty's mission is to build relationships with people and their hair to revolutionize the service and experience in the hair industry.
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Vision - InHAIRent Beauty's vision is to create and foster a home that provides for the needs of anyone who wants to pursue a healthy relationship with their identity in hair.
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Core Values - Creativity, Relationship, Education
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Extended Core Value - Customer-Centric, Transparency, Quality, Sustainability, Empowerment
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Branding Onion
Click to See Full Image
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Brand Personality
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Brand Identity
Click to See Full Image
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Color Palette
Click to See Full Image
Phase Four: Prototype
In this phase, designers use various prototyping techniques to create a rough version of the product, service, or experience. The aim of this phase is to visualize, test, and refine the selected ideas to identify potential flaws, limitations, and opportunities for improvement.
Currently Working On:
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Business Plan
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Financial Budget
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Website Prototype
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Marketing Ideas
Phase Five: Test
This phase involves evaluating the prototypes created in the previous phase and testing them with the target users. The aim is to validate the assumptions made during the previous phases, identify areas for improvement, and gather insights to inform future iterations of the design.
TBD
We will present our Business Plan and additional Prototypes to the project stakeholders on Wednesday, May 10th, 2023.​
Integration of Portfolio
Explanation of how all the areas of the PDA program integrate and compliment each other within the project. Overall understanding of learning and the program.
Project Management
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The use of Project Management Documents, like the Project Brief, RACI, communication plan, etc., set the baseline for the project.
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The creation of a Gantt Chart allowed us to lay out each phase, along with milestones, throughout the length of the project. This established a proper timeline and goals that the team aimed to meet to stay focused on the project deliverables
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The implementation of the Design Thinking Framework was integrated into the Gantt chart as a way to organize each phase of the project.
Design Thinking
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Various Design Thinking Frameworks and Activities were used throughout the project to help us fully develop an idea that met the needs of our client.
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These activities required us to empathize with the client to find their desires, pain points, goals, and experiences.
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A lot of the findings gathered through Design Thinking Frameworks were then synthesized with data analysis tools in order to solidify and be able to tell a story out of our data.
Data Analysis
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Data analysis was used heavily in the Define Phase of the Design Thinking Framework. We were able to gather all types of data, and organize it in a way that our stakeholders would be able to understand.
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We also used Data Analysis to help validate some of our initial assumptions made in the beginning of the project.
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An example of Data Analysis used in the project was the use of Coding Languages, which helped you organize Qualitative Data into overarching themes and categories. This helped me find areas of focus within our data.