Studio archive · Case study
Trim & Proper
Testing a membership-first booking experience for a New York barbershop
The brief
Trim & Proper was building a membership-driven barbershop experience in New York. Booking had to work for customers, barbers, multiple locations, and operational edge cases (from late arrivals and rescheduling to payments and membership access) without feeling like scheduling software.
Original project siteWhat we did
- Customer research
- Design sprint
- Product design
- User testing
- Web development
Tested direction
Confirmed project outcome
Customer research became a tested product direction.
A focused sprint turned interviews and service constraints into a prototype, user-testing findings, and a clear path into the broader redesign and build.
01
Start with how people actually book
We interviewed customers and the operating team to understand how people chose a barber, what made them switch, how location affected the decision, and where booking services usually became frustrating.
Those conversations grounded the sprint in real behavior instead of a list of requested screens.
02
Model the service behind the screen
The product had to account for membership tiers, unlimited-booking options, payments, rescheduling, late arrivals, barber profiles, shop purchases, notifications, and settings. We mapped those operational states before resolving the interface around them.
The result connected the customer-facing booking flow to the rules the business needed in order to deliver the service consistently.
03
Test the experience before expanding it
A structured design sprint moved from alignment and customer mapping through solution sketches, storyboarding, prototyping, and user testing.
Testing surfaced concrete refinements to filters, barber information, booking feedback, and navigation before the team committed to the broader redesign.