JAVA: A VENUE BOOKING PLATFORM

PROJECT TYPE

Designlab: UX Academy Capstone Project
TIMELINE

7 Months (ongoing project)
TOOLS

Figma, FigJam, Adobe Illustrator
DELIVERABLES

Responsive desktop, tablet, & mobile website

THE PROCESS

1. IDENTIFY

• Identify the problem
• Develop hypothesis
• Build scope/timeline of project
2. RESEARCH

• Competitive Analysis
• User Interviews
• Debrief findings
3. IDEATE

• Personas
• Storyboards
• Card Sorting
4. PROTOTYPE

• Sitemaps
• User & Task Flows
• Low-Fidelity Wireframes
5. DESIGN

• Branding
• Mid & High-Fidelity Wireframes
6. ITERATION & LAUNCH

• User Testing
• Refine end product
• Dev Hand-Off

STEP 1: IDENTIFY

PROJECT PROMPT

Planning an event
TARGET USER: Organizers that facilitate events
WHAT IS THE OVERALL GOAL?

To create a platform that would provide reliable resources for booking a venue
CHALLENGES

My initial assumption is that users that produced events would find a lot of their pain points to be centered around physical logistics, such as finding venues, vendors, and hiring companies for video/sound.
A lot of these components can be time consuming to research looking for the right fit, and even potentially costly, depending on the route taken with hiring certain vendors and budget limits.

HYPOTHESIS

I think it would be extremely convenient for users to be able to access resources all in one place, rather than search online and through social media to find consistently positive recommendations for venues. This would allow the user to cut out the middleman in terms of referrals, and allow them to go straight to the source, book, pay, and review.

(Think Zillow meets Airbnb, meets Eventbrite)

STEP 2: RESEARCH

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

I conducted a competitive analysis to compare and contrast basic features, pros and cons, target audience, and various similarities and differences between platforms.

Why is this important? It provides insight into what has consistently worked for users to reference, and opportunity by exposing areas that can be improved on.

Examples:

• Highlights: each platform listed, consistently did well with enhancing team proficiency with easy-to-use features.

• Blind spots: a steeper learning curve of the platform can hinder ease-of-use for users who are new to event planning, or simply want to casually plan events without a team.

USER INTERVIEWS

My interviews consisted of 4 guests, each with different levels of experience in event planning (specifically networking events). I wanted to learn about the in’s and out’s of organizing events of various sizes, and some of the basic needs and pain points that an event planner experiences during said timeline of facilitating an event.

RESEARCH DEBRIEF

After researching and interviewing prospective users, I learned that they would find a lot of their pain points to be centered primarily around the physical logistics, such as finding venues, vendors, and hiring companies for video/sound. I learned that each of these are important in creating the ideal experience for an event, but there are also factors that should also be accounted for. I highlighted the themes that were consistently brought up the most during each interview, which included:

• Choosing venues

• Customer service/experience

• Marketing

• Event management software & use of AI

HOW MIGHT WE?

How might we explore ways to help users gain better access to finding the right venues for their events?

STEP 3: IDEATE

PERSONAS

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STEP 4: PROTOTYPE

TASK FLOWS

Based on the pain points and needs I was provided, I narrowed down my focus to developing a platform that assists with locating venues. I picked three key screens to map out my task and user flows.

Task flows helped me to provide a general structure and outline of the journey of each key screen I want to create, from Point A to Point B.

USER FLOWS

Like task flows, user flows helped me to visualize how the flow of a page would happen with a user, but also included areas where should the user deviate from the ideal site route, that they would be redirected, quickly and efficiently, to minimize frustration with navigation.

LOW & MID-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES

Created the foundational structure of key screens. This helped me to decide what important elements to consider in a key screen, and how to arrange each element. I started out with rough sketches to get an idea of how to orient each element, then refined each screen in Figma with low fidelity wireframes. Below are examples of key mid-fidelity screens for mobile, as well as their desktop/laptop sized counterparts.