Aubrelle Studio

They share one diary. A client who books online appears in the book straight away, marked as new and online, with the skin test they booked alongside it. When reception checks them in, takes payment and rebooks them, the client's own appointment page updates to match.

It is built around the parts of a salon diary that general booking tools get wrong: colour that needs a skin test 48 hours before, processing time when the stylist is free to take someone else, and prices that depend on who does the work.

We started from how independent UK salons present themselves online and how salon software handles the diary. The website follows the conventions of established salon sites: a price list with a column for each stylist level, a page for each stylist, the salon's work, what to expect at a visit, and the skin test and deposit policies stated plainly.

Booking follows the rules salons actually use. Colour services need a skin test at least 48 hours before, so the booking offers one and moves the earliest date to suit. Deposits apply to colour and to longer appointments. Moves and cancellations inside 48 hours go to the phone.

Processing time is modelled as it is in salon software: while colour develops, the stylist is free, so a fringe trim or a consultation can be booked inside it. On the front desk those minutes are hatched and the shorter appointment sits inset within them.

The front desk is laid out as a tablet on the reception counter, like the salon apps it is modelled on, not as a desktop back office. Checkout adds retail products, takes off the deposit and asks to rebook with the same stylist at the usual interval for that service.

All of the data is fictional. The postcode area does not exist, the phone number is from Ofcom's range reserved for drama, every client and stylist is invented, and no photograph shows a member of the team. Nothing is stored or sent.