VenYou a Mobile App for Event Planners

CASE STUDY 2023

Problem

Planning an event can be stressful, especially when planners don’t know a venue and the resources that comes with it.

My ROLE

User Research, Information Architecture, Wireframing, Branding, UI Design, Prototyping, Usability Testing

Research

Goal

I want to know how event planners conduct their event research on venues to inform my understanding on the short sights and what services are desirable in a venue to provide insights on addressing them.

Methodology

To better understand the user process and needs in planning an events, I conducted the following 3 data collections with five event planners from different levels of experiences. Most of them we're from different part of the states, they were all in their late to early thirties:

  • Contextual interviews - to see how event planners are using the service in person.

  • User Interviews - to hear from users firsthand their stories of how they use the service and what role it plays in their (work) lives. These can be part of, or in place of, contextual interviews depending on circumstances.

  • Surveys - to get more objectives answers.

Affinity Map

After the interviews were conducted I utilize an affinity map to help me synthesize my findings to see the similarities in patterns and themes among my five participants. Through this I was able to retrieve insightful high-level information on the users frustration and needs.

Comparative Analysis

To provide more context on other competitor I conducted a comparative analysis. Through this method I was able to identify the gaps and improvements that are needed for event planners.

After analyzing and evaluating my affinity map and comparative analysis, I uncover some important user and applications insights that allow me define essential user needs. I discovered:

  • How to make multiple applications more interchangeable

  • How to market to audience effectively and in a timely manner

  • Utilizing social media in a consistent way and timely manner

Define

User Persona

Through meeting with my target audience and gaining insights from the interview phase, I created user persona that reflected the user base. I decided to create a user persona on Amanda who I believe encompasses the majority of the target audiences concerns and needs. For her I focus on the reasoning and emotional factors that drives and frustrate Amanda to showcase her full experience.

IDEATE

Wireframe

Through the outcome of my research and my user persona, I created a wireframe of the main page and one of the navigation structure of the app. I decided on a wireframe to allow myself to visualize the features when it is still at the beginning of the design and permit for modifications as needed. As a visual learner this helps me tremendously to see where contents are and how they connect.

Task Flow

After the wireframe I mapped out the user's task flow using the existing navigation structure in the wireframe. This task flow breakdowns the user's experience task by task and help to identify any challenges.

Low-Fidelity Wireframe

User Flow

To provide more clarity and understanding on the user decision making process and experience, I created a user flow that correlates with the task flows. This process allowed me to think more critically on the specific interactions the users might engage in and bring up any pains and or difficulty flows. Below showcase the user flow for Amanda to find a venue and create an account.

Adding onto the wireframes and task/user flows, I scaled up my designs to create low-fidelity wireframes. The foundation of this low-fidelity came from the ideation of the wireframe. I had to ensure to follow Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines for iOS apps and stay aligned when scaling the designs.

The social media on the venue contact page was directly correspondent to the user insights. During my interview phase I discover that event planners like to view different reviews and or platform of the venues. This will also allow easy access to marketing events, like Facebook events, and Instagram stories. Therefore, I decided to replicate their actual experience by implementing the social media logos.

Branding

After completing the low-fidelity, I moved my focus on bringing characteristics and identity to VenYou.

Logo Sketch

Simplicity was the key word that came to my head when I thought about the logo. Therefore, I knew that I wanted to highlight the V and Y as both letters is what makes VenYou distinct from the actual word venue. At the sometime, ensuring that the actual spelling was included to provide clarity of the app and the logo representation means.

Stylescape

Color Palette

I wanted to create a warm, trustworthy and welcoming color palette that will allow user to feel adn know that they can achieve their goal with the app and site. This is why I went with these particular primary and secondary colors. The neutral I want to create to have some hierarchy to help move the user. When I think of Venue I think of nature, home, safe, trust and these colors provides me with these emotions.

Combining the logo, color, typography, illustrations, iconography, and textures/shapes, I created a Stylescape. The stylescape it to inform the aesthetic and emotion of the brand for VenYou. When collaborating with clients, stylescapes will demonstrate the design direction of the app, while creating opportunities for iteration to effectively deliver and embody the client’s expectations for the project.

Revisions

After the usability testing, prototyping, and ideating I decided to go with revision 4. From my usability testing some have exclaim that the color palette can be hard on visibility, especially when I made the prototype for revision 1. I had the background color be ata 30% opacity, which actually made the background way darker than I originally wanted. Therefore, revision 2 came and the background was great, with the opacity to 100%, but now the contrast of the typography colors isn’t as visible. Thus, revision 3 came to be and there everything looks great but it wasn’t exuding the theme of royalty and regality that I wanted my user to sense when using the application. I
wanted to feel trust and honesty and so I made the color a darker shade of my revision 3.

Final Design

Outcomes

Usability Test

To test this app I recruited 5 individuals, with different level of event planning experiences, as participants to test my designs. I was intentional on recruiting different level of event planning because I want to ensure that this application is user friendly to all level of event planners. Moreover, I wanted to also learn from the first hand experience of my target user (event planners). The goal of the test was to learn whether the main navigations, aesthetics and CTAs were effective and clear.

Here are some of the insights discovered through the test:

  • Color Palette makes it easy to view.

  • Overall layout of the application is user friendly

  • The background color might be too dark and different from the color of the wire frame.

  • Adding category of different type of venues so user can search base on that.

  • Having more detail information on the venue profile page.

  • Add additional pictures so participants can scroll.

Reflection

VenYou was a thrilling and rewarding project from start to finish. The fact that this project was created from my own ideations and experiences as an event planner and understanding the frustrations and pain points of planning an event is what makes this project so critical and important. I know that I am not the only event planner that struggles and through my user interviews and tests I know this is true. Therefore, I hope to see the fruition of this app for event planners to make their lives more efficient and effective as they continue to plan their big, small, personal or professional events.

The followings are some key takeaways from this project:

Consistency is success
VenYou showed me how important consistency is to ensure the success of a user tasks. This was very evident during my icons design phase where I had to ensure that all of the icons had rounded edges to match the feeling of the app.

Thinking more bigger for corporate/professional events
When creating VenYou I was thinking more on a personal to small business event planning. Moving forward I want to be intentional on how these resources will function for big corporates company who may want to utilize this resources.