Transforming Beauty Appointments: Designing an Intuitive Online Booking Flow for Freshly

Freshly, a SaaS platform for beauty professionals, needed an online booking experience that aligned with modern customer expectations. A manual appointment system for service providers led to:

Lost revenue from missed bookings -> Users couldn’t book instantly.
Operational inefficiencies -> Service providers manually scheduled appointments, reducing productivity.
Customer frustration -> Lack of a digital process meant clients struggled to access appointment details.

As the Product Designer, I led the UX strategy, designed the online booking flow, and worked closely with engineers and the product manager to ensure a seamless implementation. Through research, competitive analysis, and iterative testing, I helped Freshly launch a scalable booking system that improved both user experience and business efficiency.

Freshly booking flow overview

My Solution

✅ Online booking process for customers.
✅ Enable customers to select services and favourite staff.
✅ Provide a way for customers to pay through the app.
✅ Let customer add their appointment to their calendars.

Freshly booking solution screens

Research

Desk research

I looked at existing examples on online booking processes to identify patterns and elements that were common. I later shared this with the client to gather feedback of elements they liked and disliked to guide the direction of the project.

Userflow

Booking user flow, part 1

Booking user flow, part 2

Design Process

UX Strategy

I designed the online booking flow using a user-centered approach, focusing on:

✔ Reducing decision fatigue: Introduced a guided step-by-step flow, surfacing relevant choices at each stage.
✔ Enhancing provider trust: Added bios, ratings, and portfolio images to help customers make informed decisions.
✔ Minimising scheduling conflicts: Built real-time staff availability syncing into the booking interface.

Key UI Optimisations

Instant booking confirmation -> Increase booking rates.
Service and staff filtering -> Simplified appointment selection.
Integrated payments -> Allowed users to pay at the time of booking, reducing no-shows

Challenges

Deciding on the correct order of steps, some users may prefer selecting staff members first while others may want to select a service first.
Accommodating for cases where the user just wants the earliest slot available.
Making user aware how a staff member’s availability can impact which time slot is the earliest available and enabling the user to change a staff member for an earlier appointment.

Next steps

Due to the tight deadline, some of the fast followers to implement after launch would include:

Emails flows for reminders
Considering whether telephone numbers are necessary to include in sign up process to allow for SMS communication
Flows for cancelling and rescheduling appointments
Service provider dashboard