Overview
Date: June 2020
Project period: 1 week
Role: Lead Product Designer
My contributions
UX Design
UI Design
Accessibility review and improvements
Kit
Adobe XD
Azure DevOps
In June 2020, I worked as the lead product designer on a project for Consol, a well-known tanning brand. The challenge was to evaluate and improve their website’s user experience, with a focus on usability, accessibility, and competition review. From this, the idea for a mobile app was born — an app designed to simplify how users interact with Consol on the go, offering features like account top-ups and store sign-ins.
Consol had already implemented innovative technologies in-store, such as fingerprint and facial recognition login, but these weren’t always perfect. Their website, too, had room for improvement, particularly in making top-ups easier. At the time, users had two main options: a somewhat cumbersome website or in-store kiosks. Both had their drawbacks, and neither were especially user-friendly.
This project kicked off with a deep dive into their existing website. Using Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics as a framework, I evaluated the site, reviewed competitor offerings, and pinpointed several areas for improvement. The conclusion was clear: the solution lay in updating their current website to streamline their customer experience and improve accessibility and in creating a dedicated mobile app, one that offered users a quicker, simpler way to engage with Consol.
I worked closely with Consol’s founder, Jesper, to map out the primary user journeys. Thanks to Felinesoft, who had long been Consol’s tech partner, we also had access to valuable data that helped us understand how users typically interacted with the brand — including how they topped up their accounts and what devices they used.
In the mobile design space, interactions tend to be short and fragmented, so it was crucial to focus on the most important features: top-ups, login/registration, and finding a nearby store. Drawing from user data and insights, I created wireframes and started sketching the app’s user journeys, keeping usability principles top of mind.
The app’s design had to strike a balance between being stylish (tanning is a lifestyle choice, after all) and highly functional. Most users were on iPhones, so we used iOS design guidelines as the basis for the app’s style, ensuring it looked and felt seamless on Apple devices.Key features included:
1. Account Top-ups: A smooth process for users to add credit using Apple Pay or Google Pay, cutting out the need for manual card entry or clunky in-store kiosks.
2. Contactless Sign-in: To improve hygiene and speed, users could log in to Consol studios using QR codes instead of fingerprint or face recognition.
3. Store Locator: A GPS-powered feature that showed users their nearest Consol studio, complete with turn-by-turn navigation.
4. Registration: A streamlined, mobile-friendly sign-up process, complete with age verification, borrowing best practices from the banking sector (e.g. Monzo).
Due to the tight project timeline (one week), I ran several internal user testing sessions to validate the designs and ensure usability. The app launched on 9th July 2020 and quickly gained traction. By the time of writing this case study, it had a 4.8 App Store rating, with over 19,000 downloads on iOS and 6,600 on Android.
Not only had 23,000 users completed registration, but the app also helped generate £290K in sales, with the contactless sign-in feature becoming the preferred method for visiting Consol studios, especially during the COVID-19 period.
In summary, this project took a well-established brand and helped modernise its digital experience, improving convenience and accessibility for its users.
