Team Project with Tegan Cramer, Kelli Manthei, Ara Yardemian, led by Ashley Garcia. Instructor Davina Wolter
About 65% of women have curly or wavy hair but there is a lack of understanding and support around the complexities of managing it. We noticed a potential opportunity to help.
To understand the market, we surveyed 66 people with curly hair. It was interesting to hear their perspective on a new wave headed their way — what is called The Curly Hair Movement. Of the 66 responders, a massive amount — almost three quarters — had never heard of The Curly Hair Movement. Time to tell ya’ll about the movement we are all so passionate about.
Curly people struggle to do their hair — 45% say styling is a moderate challenge and 33% say it’s difficult — this suggests the industry is not helping them enough. We found that people are finding products through their community and wondered how might we improve that connection?
Hair cuts can be a nightmare for anyone, and doubly so for people who have curly hair and don’t already have a trusted stylist. Our audience reported a number of concerns that address: lack of supply, lack of quality, lack of faith, history of disappointment. We see the signs of an underserved market.
We sketched out early thoughts on pop-up solutions in a breakout session, knowing we wanted to focus on the person within the experience.
We additionally put together information for a curly hair packet — taking available materials we liked and showed them to people to see how they worked.
We found that without showing the interaction, people were unclear how much they would use the packet. People wanted hands on service with something to take away.
Our final solution is a tiered response:
Tier 1: Consultation where stylist does and evaluation and recommends products and a hair care regime for journey to healthy curls
Tier 2: Consultation where stylist does evaluation, product recommendations and styles hair
Tier 3: Consultation with style and allowing the customer to do sections of their own hair with guidance from the stylist
Features: Sign up - take pic of hair , list current product used and routine, define hair goals / connect with stylist choose a service tier and schedule at home visit
