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

PROJECT PROMPT

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

I would like to create a platform that would essentially be a one-stop shop for an event organizer’s needs!
USER 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 vendors and venues. Essentially 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)

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

CHALLENGES

My initial assumption was 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.

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

Competitive Analysis allowed the me to compare and contrast basic features, pros and cons, target audience, and various similarities and differences between platforms.

Because my prompt involved event planning, I chose four platforms specialized in this category to compare and contrast.

USER INTERVIEWS

My interviews consisted of 4 guests, each with different levels of experience in event planning (specifically networking). I wanted to learn about the in’s and out’s of organizing large scale events, and what are some of the basic needs and pain points that an event planner experiences during the 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 planning teams find the right venues that would provide flexibility and accessibility to create the ideal event?
HOW MIGHT WE?

How might we explore ways to incorporate automated systems to streamline the process of event planning?
HOW MIGHT WE?

How might we explore ways to increase outreach to more potential event attendees with the use of marketing?

PERSONAS

Utilizing my research and interview insights, I created three personas, and highlighted their needs, goals and pain points.

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.