Gathers

Overview

Project Type

Independent project

Duration

3 months

Skills

User research, competitive analysis, wire framing, usability testing, prototyping

Summary

a mobile app that streamlines event-planning for the average party-planner and vendors 

USER RESEARCH

Event planning is perceived as a time-consuming and inefficient process.

Celebrations are all around us - birthdays, engagement parties, and more. The process of organizing them isn’t easy. I surveyed 30 people with various expertise levels in event planning. Here’s a summary of their pain points, drawn from the thoughts, emotions, and motivations they shared.

Pain Points

  • Users experience decision fatigue when using Google or reservation platforms to search for venues and caterers. They narrow down choices by visiting vendors' websites, calling about availability, and sifting through countless reviews. It is a time-consuming process that requires multiple platforms.

  • Most vendors do not reveal price information online. Users must figure it out by contacting them directly which prolongs the research process. Some vendors are inconsistent with pricing or try to up-charge. This hurts the vendor-consumer relationship.

  • Photos posted by the vendor can be outdated, inaccurate, and/or misleading. Users also often cannot customize their selection. After bookings have been made, vendors are often not flexible with modifications (ie. group size).

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

A central consumer-to-vendor marketplace in event planning does not exist yet.

From my research of existing reservation platforms and catering companies (including Resy and the Vendry), I gathered that they address only specific parts of the event planning process. There is a need for a central marketplace that covers all the parts.

IDEATE

The solution: an all-in-one event planning marketplace

The marketplace will be a mobile app that integrates vendor information and streamlines booking. The app, called Gathers, serves to connect people with vendors across the venue, food & beverage, and decor industries. Gatherings are expected to be small to mid-sized.

Primary Task Flow

Create an event by booking with a venue, food & beverage caterer, and/or a decor supplier in a step-by-step process.

Secondary Task Flows

Look up nearby vendors based on the zip code entered and learn about each vendor by reviewing the description, rating, cuisines offered, and more.

Modify details of reservations that have already been booked.

Get inspiration from how other users have organized similar events using the app.

USABILITY TEST

v1.0 of Gathers needed to be iterated

After I designed the initial version of high-fidelity wireframes, I tested it on the first batch of users. The findings revealed several usability issues and UI flaws. Here is a summary of them:

    • Users found the process to be intuitive and straightforward, given the progress numbers on the top of the page and the “next” button located at the bottom of each step

    • The capacity limit for many of the vendor options provided did not match what the user was looking for (their group size). Users had to sift through many options and identify their cap size.

    • Users don’t get to see the price of each vendor until they reach the final confirmation page, which causes confusion

    • Having to identify the vendors with the right cap size caused additional work for users, increasing the time it took for them to book their event

    • Because no confirmation of the price was given at each step, users had to return to already completed steps to verify completion and also mentally calculate the total

    • In addition to knowing what the popular vendors are near them, users wanted to know if there were any ongoing deals. A good discount from a vendor could be incentivizing.

    • Users wanted to see the description of each food item before deciding, especially for people with dietary restrictions.

    • Sometimes people don’t have an exact price in mind as their budget. They are flexible if the price exceeds their budget by a couple of dollars. The current browse workflow requires them to have an exact price in mind; users have to update it constantly to check if better vendors would come up.

    • Users were not sure whether the calendar displayed was for referencing or selection purposes since there was already an existing date field above it

Gathers Iterated: v2.0

In addition to addressing evident usability issues, I also gave Gathers a facelift. My goal was to meet the industry standards of UI design more closely and make the app appear more modern. The aesthetic improvements were also meant to allow users to feel more familiar with the app as if they had experienced a similar workflow and interacted with the same features on another app before. The changes served to heighten intuition, expedite task completion, and increase user satisfaction.

As Cliff Kuang says in his book, “How the hidden rules of design are changing the way we live, work, and play” about mental models:

"Mental models are nothing more and nothing less than the intuitions we have about how something works -- how its pieces and functions fit together. They're based on the things we've used before; you might describe the entire task of user experience as the challenge of fitting a product to our mental models of how things should work."

Onboarding & Homepage

I created a sign-in / create account page to welcome users before they enter the home page.

Since users voiced that they’d be incentivized by ongoing deals, I created a “Deals this week” section for users to browse through.

Additionally, I improved the UI by
1) making the buttons less harsh-looking, and 2) using shadows to create a sense of elevation and illustrate spatial relationships.

Browse page

Several users mentioned that they had different selection criteria depending on the vendor type. Therefore, I created distinct lists of filters for venues, food caterers, and decor suppliers. Additionally, the individual vendor page now shows up as a pop-up rather than on a separate page to illustrate that it is part of the same task and users are encouraged to continue browsing.

Event Booking

When selecting the date in v1.0, many users were unsure of how to interact with the date field. I addressed the confusion by encouraging users to use the calendar primarily for date selection. Users can now also indicate whether they’re flexible with the dates.

Additionally, users with dietary restrictions wanted to see the ingredients of food items so I added descriptions for this type of information. Similar to the vendor page pop-ups, the food items now also pop up on the same page to show that users are still on the same task.

Toggles

Interaction Design

In addition to addressing usability issues and improving the UI, I also improved the interaction design to make the app more dynamic, intuitive, and in-sync with what users wanted to accomplish.

Pop-ups
Customization

In v1.0, vendor options showed up on a different page when selected. This was causing a delay in task completion as users weren’t sure whether to return to the last page.

In v2.0, the options now appear as a pop-up on the same page to indicate that the task is ongoing. Users can click out of the pop-up to view other options or proceed with the one they’re interested in. For the same reason, filters also appear as pop-ups now.

For a more seamless transition, users can now toggle between types of information to learn more about a vendor or view items they've saved.

In v1.0, users reported having difficulty with selecting food items because all the features (filters, quantity fields, submission buttons) were crowded on the same page. I addressed this feedback by spreading this task across multiple pop-ups, enabling a better customization experience.

Reflection

This project idea came to mind as I was struggling to plan events for my own friends and family. Although I began the project with my personal pain points in mind, I still challenged them by going through an extensive user research process. As much as I believed that my struggles were valid, I did not want to assume that others shared the exact same experience as me. After A/B testing, the app designs underwent many UI and workflow changes. As a result, I learned the importance of iterating and adapting to users’ feedback as they come up. First versions are often not the perfect version. It’s important to make drastic changes; they will be worth the time and effort for your users in the end.