What do you do when in the middle of a project the company goes viral?

Eyedentity • Expert Iris Photography

Note: The company has been sunset so this is a copy of the original site. Some elements like the interactive map and reservation system are no longer functional.

📝 Background

I was approached by my long-time collaborator and serial entrepreneur, Scott Petinga to help introduce his new iris photography business to the US market. Iris photography has been gaining traction outside of the US and as the only company in the US with his German-engineered camera system he knew positioning his brand on the web was critical for success.

🎯 Goals

• Bring awareness to the concept of iris photography for the US. There is already some traction in other countries but not much here yet.
• To implement a reservation system to facilitate customer appointments for iris photography and prints.
• To generate 100s of orders within the first 30 days of the website launch.

🔎 Scope

• Async brand interview
• Copywriting & prototyping
• Webflow design and development
• Custom third-party integrations

🧱 Requirements

• A reservation system with the following functionality:
  • Require a valid credit card to book the reservation, but don't charge. Vault the credit card to charge the customer later.
  • Appointments in 15 minute increments.
  • A single person should be able to reserve more than one appointment.
  • Tour dates need to be seen in advance with a "to be determined" location.
    • There may be times when the exact location will not be known until a week or two out.
  • Collect email address and phone number during the reservation process so can send email and text notifications.
  • Ability to charge a fee for no-shows and cancellations.
• A prominent note indicating items will not be available until 5-10 business days from date of the reservation.

👩🏽‍💻 Tech stack

For the reservation flow I chose a custom third-party integration with Acuity Scheduling from Squarespace. I was already familiar with them and Calendly as popular choices for appointment scheduling. To test both, I set up potential workflows to determine which best checks off all of the boxes for requirements. Calendly did not meet the requirement of an option to collect credit card information without initiating a charge, leaving Acuity Scheduling as the final choice. Acuity also integrates with the client’s payment processor, Square.