Research Goals

• Understand how a user currently organizes and communicates their wedding event planning.

• Determine how a user currently collects images and videos from weddings and/or other related events (ie. bachelorette party).

• Determine what pain points users currently have.

Research Questions

• What is the communication and planning process for users' wedding-related events?

• What do users currently use for wedding-related event planning and communicating?

• How do users communicate & plan their wedding-related events now?

• How do users currently collect images from weddings & related events?

• What frustrations do users experience?

• How do user frustrations affect their planning?

• How do users deal with their frustrations?

Competitor Analysis

• Wedding Planning/Communication App.

For my competitors, I summarized one main feature that helps or hurts them. Competitor’s biggest weakness, biggest strength, or biggest difference. I looked at competitors and their reviews to find what they offer and what users liked and disliked. I chose each competitor’s features based on their relation to my research goals and what I wanted to include in my app.

Research Participants

I used my research plan questions and research goals to create my interview questions. I created questions that were not only for couples planning a wedding but anyone planning any event/s related to a wedding (rehearsal dinner, bachelorette party, etc.).

I tried to focus more on the process of planning and organizing with and without the use of apps. On the off chance, the user doesn't use an app, and to get an idea of the user's needs and pain points regardless of app usage.

Interview Participants:

• 21+ years 

• Currently planning a wedding

• Currently planning a wedding-related event

• Recently Married

• Married in the last 8 years

Interview Questions

1. What is your current planning process? What do you use to help you during planning?

2. How do you interact with the wedding couple, wedding party, and/or guests during the planning process?

3. Can you describe a time when you had an issue or issues with planning and/or communicating? What happened?

Research Findings

I wrote down all of my notes on paper during my interviews and then typed them all onto a Google document afterward.

I was supposed to have more participants but they never responded. Luckily, the 4 participant results I got, were enough to complete my empathy map.

Participants

• One Married

• One Married and currently planning a wedding

• Two engaged and currently planning a wedding

Empathy Map

I had to write down notes to help me get what the users were thinking and feeling from their words and actions. Writing it down on paper helped me break it down better than seeing it on the screen.

Needs

• Users need a way to organize tasks and duties.

• Users need a way to stay on schedule.

• Users need a way to communicate with the necessary people.

• Users need to keep track of budget.

• Users need a way to gather images.
  

Persona

I used the needs and insights from my empathy map to create my persona. I started by adding my quote and needs and created everything else around those.

Zoey Jacobs

Needs a way to organize tasks & duties and stay on schedule, communicate with necessary people, and keep track of the budget.

Feature Roadmap

I used my empathy map & persona to create my features. I also used my competitors for reference. Since there are many features my main focus will be the Event Planning and Messaging aspects of the app.

In the "can come later" section, I added an Experience Discovery and Vendors Feature because I feel like my participants touched on these subjects slightly in my interviews, so they are not the main issues or goals but I felt like they fit.

Task Flow

I made my task flow a little different this time. I created 3 flows but one flow consists of 2 flows because they relate to each other and it saved space. I ended up adding the image flow because I wanted to test it as one of my main features.

User Flow

This flow has a lot of decisions. I had to sketch the flow on paper to follow the path clearly because of all the decisions. While creating my flow I ended up connecting many tasks together, which resulted in creating multiple end-points and “ending” options for users.

I started this flow not realizing I had made an assumption that “users would only be using the app to complete one action at a time”. Once I realized this, I quickly corrected the flow to reflect the many paths the user would take to complete the outlined actions.

I also decided against the camera flow that I included in my task flow because it wasn’t a main concern with participants and it would create more work for me.

Low-Fidelity Wireframes

I started my wireframes with sketches. I used my competitors and my user flow. I also created different screen variations for certain screens that I think I might use for my prototype.

I followed my user flow and added screens for several scenarios, such as user canceling the event, user messaging one individual instead of a group, etc.

I originally had multiple calendar options but decided to have only one. I did this so users that don’t want to add their events to their mobile calendar can still use the calendar in the app. The calendar option in the app will display the user’s events by month with the option to filter by year.

Screens

• Home

• Tasks

• Itinerary

• Events

• Event Template

• Create Event

Mood Board

I looked for images containing the colors from my color scheme. Images with excitement and movement and pops of color.

My brand identity is:

• Festive

• Joyful

• Funky

Style Tile

I used images from my mood board and my style tile template to create this.

For Text, I wanted fonts that were round, clean, and big enough to still be readable when small, so I chose Poppins & Merriweather Sans.

High-Fidelity Wireframes

I got stuck with too many references and didn't know where to start. But I settled on the idea of a lava lamp. Pages with no background bubbles, like “Events” & “Events Template” screens, will have turquoise bubbles appear when the user selects an event.

I really wanted to create some dimensions on the screens because they felt a little flat to me. So I added some drop shadow effects and layering to titles and images.

I also decided to really go with the chicken theme and used chickens for profile icons. The Task screen isn’t as polished as the others because I don't think I will use it in my prototype but wanted to include it just in case.

Screens

• Login

• Home

• Tasks

• Itinerary

• Events

• Event Template

UI Kit

I created my UI kit after my wireframes, in case I need to change anything. I took all the buttons, input boxes, icons, features, etc., and copied and pasted them all into a Figma file. Then I organized them all into my UI Kit template.

Prototyping

I had to create a few more pages, drop-downs, and pop-ups to make functions work. I had a lot of little elements to connect and it was tedious but I learned how to create a sticky layer and I'm really happy with the results.

Usability Test

I had an idea of what I wanted to test users on when creating my hi-fi wireframes. I'm testing users on the events & messaging aspect of the app since they are my main focus. However, I started second-guessing if I should include tasks or not in the testing.

The test is pretty simple. I'm mainly just trying to see if users can find & create events since it's not blatantly obvious.

This time, I included the option for users to explore the app before starting tasks. I wanted to find out if they perform better.

Usability Tasks

Participants were asked to perform 4 tasks.

• Task 1: Create an Event

• Task 2: Edit an Event

• Task 3: Find Messages

• Task 4: Create a Message

Affinity Map

To create my map I took my usability test findings and categorized them into similarities, differences, frustrations/confusion, and feedback.

Similarities:

• 3 of 5 participants looked around and got familiar with the app before starting the tasks.

• 2 of 5 participants instantly selected the planner icon to create an event.

• 4 of 5 participants completed Task 3 with no issues.

• 5 of 5 participants completed Task 4 with no issues.

Differences:

• 3 of 5 participants looked around for the “Create an Event” screen in different locations.

• 1 of 5 participants looked for “Messages” in the wrong location.

Frustrations/Confusions:

• 3 of 5 participants needed prompting or a reminder of task 2.

• 2 of 5 participants got lost and confused when trying to edit the event time.

• 3 of 5 participants missed the edit option at the top of the “Engagement Party” event screen.

• 2 of 5 participants commented that they didn’t realize the planner icon was clickable.

Feedback:

• 2 of 5 participants gave no feedback

• 1 of 5 participants commented, ”I think it would be helpful to have the bar at the bottom hover and stay on the screen when you scroll”.

• 1 of 5 participants suggested a seating chart feature in the future.

All in All

I had a pretty good idea of what prompt I would choose for this project before I started. I am in the wedding party of one of my closest friends. As she is planning her wedding she had us download a bachelorette party app to communicate and share ideas. From the beginning, there were issues with the app. The idea was really good but the execution wasn’t and that was what led me to the idea for this project.

The beginning of this project was the easiest for me. I struggled somewhat with finding relatable competitors but once I did, I was golden. When I started my empathy research I began to have issues. I lined up several participants that ended up falling through. It was frustrating but luckily for me, I was able to get enough information from the 4 participants I had.

One of my favorite aspects of this project, like my other projects, is my logo. I really enjoyed the process of thinking and sketching out all the ideas that came to mind. It came to a point where I liked so many of my designs that I struggled to pick just one.

Another aspect I really enjoyed but struggled with the most was my high-fidelity wireframes. My first iteration was not to my liking but I couldn’t figure out why. I went back to my mood board and logo designs and remembered what identity and feelings I was trying to provoke. Going back helped me realize that I didn’t like my wireframes because they didn’t fit the brand values and vibe.

Going back and re-evaluating my brand helped me realize how important it is to constantly double-check my work when something feels off. And to go back and make sure that the brand identity is cohesive throughout the project.