Our Song
A research project to learn about the user's needs to booking a musician for their wedding.
THE PROBLEM
Wedding planning can be a very stressful & time consuming ordeal. Finding performers available the same time and date as your venue can be exhausting.
Planning a wedding is a very daunting task for most working-class individuals. The amount of time, energy & money can turn a happy day into a stressful nightmare. Finding a way to cut out the ordeal of finding a performer for your venue is just one way to cut down some of the time and stress. Our mission for the mobile app is to do just that, simplify some of the wedding planning process.
TIMELINE
December 2021-February 2022
My Role
Sole Ux designer, researcher, wireframing, prototyoing, iterations.
KEY GOAL
Create an efficient mobile app to book performers for a wedding venue.
MY ROLE
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Plan and conduct user research and competitor analysis.
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Interpret data and qualitative feedback.
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Create user stories, personas, and storyboards.
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Determine information architecture and create sitemaps.
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Create prototypes and wireframes.
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Conduct usability testing
As part of one of my projects for the Google Certification Ux design course, I was the sole Ux designer on this project.
I've had so much fun going from end to end in this project and play every role to discover which roles I enjoy the most, which roles I need to hone my skills more & which roles come most naturally to me. Finding the simplest ways to meet the user's needs is always an adventure.
UNDERSTANDING THE USER
My research began by reaching out to 5 friends & family members that have been married within the last 10 years and have done the planning on their own as well as hired a planner. My assumption was that wedding planning was a complicated and time consuming project that often added stress to what should be a happy experience.
Whether planning a wedding completely on your own or having a wedding planner to guide you, it's still a very time consuming task that takes up a lot of your focus. After my interviews and getting feed back from the pain points of each individual I was able to map out an idea of what each user was looking for when exploring the potential mobile app.
Finding user pain points.
After my interviews I created an affinity map to find themes between user pain points as a tool to help me better understand their needs & apply them to the mobile app creating process.
BREAKING DOWN THE PROCESS
I really wanted the structure and layout of the app to give peace of mind to the user that they could easily find exactly what they’re looking for in a performer.
My initial set up for the app was to create the home page to have a top navigation bar showcasing different genres to help narrow down their search for performers. Below the genre navigation, I had planned on featuring a three separate sections; "This month's featured artists," "Top rated artists," & "Discount deal artists."
THESE WERE SOME MAJOR LEARNINGS OR POINTS WE WANTED TO CALL OUT
Genre Navigation
While I believed the navigation tool bar would be an efficient resource to narrow down performers, most responses in usability testing found it to feel "busy" on the homepage. So I moved it into the search section of the app.
Wording is essential
During usability testing, the feedback I received about using terms like "discount" or "budget" made some users feel their wedding planning was low quality.
Multiple paths of navigation.
Having multiple avenues for the user to take for finding their performer was very important, even though most used the search feature, a few did not take the same route. Focus on every user's needs.
TITLE OF THE CALLOUT BLOCK
LESSONS LEARNED
What YOU think would be the simplest way to navigate or use an app is not the way for everyone. Plan for everyone.
Going in to this project or any project, you can think you have an idea of the best way to set up an experience for your users. However, you need to be able to take yourself outside of your everyday thinking of things and see through the eyes of the users you interview.