Source: Te Pukenga
Students at Ara Institute of Canterbury have developed a new web-based product for hair salons to manage skin tests for customers’ hair colouring appointments.
Colour Me Safe communicates with customers and salons during the skin test process, providing test reviews, record keeping and automated notifications to both customers and salons.
Designed by Tech Colab, part of Ara’s Business Department which provides business and tech services to Canterbury businesses as part of students’ learning, Colour Me Safe is the result of a first semester project working with an external client.
“We created a web-based solution for Colour Me Safe to communicate easily with customers and salons,” says Stella Bauer, a Tech Colab student and one of Colour Me Safe’s team members. “Our Word Press solution with multiple forms enables customers to register, order test kits online and upload photos from anywhere.”
“We believe we inspired the client to using her website to increase efficiency, and as a result, she will receive a great uptake on her skin test products,” Bauer says.
Being a part of Tech Colab means the students gain not only the experience of working with proper clients, but also the skills to keep up with the scope of a client’s needs.
Tech Colab Project Supervisor Amit Sarkar says “In Tech Colab, client requests are always changing, just like they would in the real world. So, we have developed a more agile way of working to help the students adapt to these alternate ideas and they have done an incredible job. The project will be featured in Ara’s Emerge Exhibition and then go to a national conference in information technology and computer science teaching in October.”
Bhaswati Ghosh, Tech Colab Client Relationship Manager, says the client is very happy with the outcome of the project and has employed one of the students to further develop the web programme.
Mason Snape and Fei Yan also worked on the project with Bauer. “All the students were fabulous and very resilient with the project, which is great for them to show off in their portfolios,” Bhaswati says. “And – they all secured a good grade!”
