BizPaddy
Industry
Capital Market
Role
Senior Product Designer
Timeline
Dec 2024 - Feb 2025
Key Focus Areas
Product Strategy • UX Strategy • UI Design • Product Development • Motion Design • Prototyping • Team Management • UI Engineering • Design System Engineering
Problem Discovery
The market already had appointment booking tools like Calendly and Cal.com, which are great for general scheduling, and niche-specific platforms like Fresha, tailored to beauty and salon services. However, these solutions left a gap: there was no flexible, robust platform for businesses in other service industries—like home maintenance or automotive care—to manage bookings effectively. This meant businesses in these underserved niches struggled to offer convenient, scalable booking options to their customers. BizPaddy aimed to solve this by providing a platform where businesses could showcase their services, set pricing, sync availability, and assign appointments, while customers could book effortlessly with transparent costs.
Research
To validate the idea, we started with market research, analyzing competitors in the appointment booking space. We found:
Niche Focus: Platforms like Fresha catered exclusively to beauty and salon businesses, leaving other industries underserved.
Generic Limitations: Tools like Calendly and Cal.com offered basic scheduling but lacked features tailored to service-based businesses, especially local ones in Canada.
Opportunity: No platform provided a flexible, all-in-one solution for diverse service niches.
This gap confirmed our hypothesis: businesses needed a customizable booking tool, and customers wanted a simple way to book services across industries. Next, we held brainstorming sessions within the team to map out user flows for both the business dashboard and the customer-facing site, ensuring we addressed the needs of both merchants and their clients.
Design Process
Sketches & User Flows: Based on our brainstorming, I sketched initial ideas for the business dashboard (service creation, pricing, staff assignment) and the customer site (service browsing, booking, payment). These sketches outlined how users would navigate each side of the platform.
Feedback Loops: I shared the sketches with stakeholders and a small group of potential customers. Their input was invaluable—businesses highlighted what aligned with their workflows and flagged what didn’t. For example, some wanted more control over staff scheduling, while others emphasized clear pricing visibility for customers.
Wireframes: Combining stakeholder and user feedback, we refined the sketches into a final wireframe that addressed these pain points.
High-Fidelity Mockups: I designed high-fidelity mockups to bring the wireframes to life, focusing on usability and clarity.
Prototyping: I built an interactive prototype to test the flow and gather final insights before development.
This iterative process ensured the design met real user needs while staying aligned with the project’s goals.
Solution
BizPaddy’s final design is a two-sided platform:
Business Dashboard: Merchants can:
Create and price services.
Sync availability via an integrated calendar.
Auto-assign fees for transparency.
View customer bookings and assign them to staff members.
Confirm payments with integrated Stripe and Interac (optimized for Canadian businesses).
Customer-Facing Website: Clients can: Browse available services.
Book appointments with real-time availability.
See clear pricing upfront and pay securely.
The platform’s flexibility makes it adaptable to any service-based business, from house cleaning to auto detailing, while its intuitive design ensures ease of use for both merchants and customers.
Outcomes
BizPaddy successfully launched as a versatile booking solution, addressing the gap in the market for non-niche-specific service businesses. Early feedback from merchants praised the ability to manage bookings and staff efficiently, while customers appreciated the straightforward booking process. The integration of local payment options like Interac also resonated with Canadian businesses. Moving forward, we plan to iterate based on user data and expand features to further support growing businesses.