Helping Friends Stay Friends While Planning Group Events

Not interested in reading? Listen instead! Click on the video above to hear me share the story of how Event-ually came to be and watch me click through a low-fidelity prototype.

 
 

Overview

Scope: A class exercise turned into a project focusing on developing an app. that helps friend groups plan events together by upholding a non-hierarchical structure and increasing task visibility.

Team: Individual project

Role: UX Researcher, UX Designer

Tools: Figma, Miro

Timeline: Two-week design sprint

 

Methods Used So Far

User Research, User Interviews, Affinity Mapping, Persona Development, User Journey, User Flows, Low-Fidelity Wireframe Creation, Usability Testing, Prototyping

 
 

Problem

People are busy with work, family obligations, and hobbies. Often, friend groups want to get together to blow off steam but struggle to coordinate casual events because there is no hierarchy within friend groups, so no one person is “in-charge” of delegating tasks. This means one person always has to take on the work of planning.

 

Solution

Through research and iteration, I developed a mobile application that allows friend groups to evenly and fairly divide the event planning workload via a “sign-up for tasks” feature and a random assignment tool.

 
 

Starting with User Research

I conducted research in the space of people attempting to organize events with friends because I recently had a difficult friend group event planning experience and thought, “there’s no way I’m the only one struggling with this.“

So, I posted on LinkedIn asking my network if anyone would be willing to chat with me regarding planning group events (anything from barbecues and girls’ nights to vacations).

 
 

Insights from Users

Keeping in mind time constraints, I conducted four user interviews, digging into what they find challenging about planning group events and WHY. Then, I synthesized this data to created an affinity map, sorting users’ most significant needs and pain points.

Download the complete affinity map.

Users Shared:

image of sticky notes. Feels stress about planning events, likes knowing responsibilities, prefers to prioritize information in the way that best makes sense to them
 
 

Meet Jamie

After synthesizing the initial research, I leveraged this data to craft a persona, focusing on key needs and frustrations to center my design process.

 
Image of Jamie Johnson: The Organizer

The Organizer


Jamie Johnson

28yrs old, Assistant Art Director

Needs:

  • Wants to know planning details so she feels less anxious

  • Desires to organize information in the way that makes the most sense to her

Frustrations:

  • Feels planning events with friends is hard because there is not a single person in-charge of assigning tasks

  • Thinks it’s difficult to rely on others to follow through on planning details

Behaviors:

  • Makes time for everyone except herself

 

“If you know anything about planning events, it's like nothing's ever going to go the way that you want it to go”

 
 

Let’s Hypothesize

Once I had a better understanding of Jamie and her pain points, I created a user journey.

Then, I got curious, began brainstorming, and asked questions like: How might I help Jamie make the planning process more structured by providing more details and clear responsibilities to give her a sense of control.

Before I began designing, I needed a baseline, so I crafted a hypothesis:

I believe that by creating a group event planning mobile app. for Jamie, she will feel less anxious because she and her friends will be able to share responsibility and have transparency in viewing planning progress.

 
 

Let’s Talk About Possible Solutions

I started to brainstorm what features this app. needs to stand out and add value, differentiating this app. from other project management software. I landed on two features:

  1. Assign & Random Assignment Feature

  2. Task Prioritization Tool

 
 

It Needs to Flow

After refining the features, I began thinking about how Jamie might move throughout the features in the app. I created several user flows and iterated until I had a Task Prioritization User Flow that I thought made sense.

I wanted to test my flow, so I hand-sketched wireframes and conducted two usability tests to identify any potential issues within the flow.

I discovered that users were confused when they encountered the “Assign Friends to Tasks“ feature. I dug deeper and learned that users wanted to be able to sign-up for tasks or randomly assign them; they didn’t have any interest in actually assigning people.

Back To Brainstorming

With this discovery from the usability tests, I began thinking again about critical features. I reworked and refined these solutions.

Key design features:

  1. Sign-up & Random Assignment feature where Jamie can either sign-up herself or roll the dice and randomly assign a friend - holding to lack of hierarchy within friend groups

  2. Task Prioritization tool so that Jamie is able to organize information on her to-do-list in a way that makes the most sense to her

Then, I created an updated Task Prioritization User Flow to align with these critical features, ultimately giving Jamie more decision points and options for customizing her event planning.

Download iterations of this user flow.

 
 

The Proposed Solution

All of the gathered information contributed to my proposed solution: a mobile app. that allows Jamie and her friends to create events, sign-up for, or randomly assign tasks while prioritizing their individual to-to-lists in a way that makes the most sense to them.

Work in Progress: Low-fidelity Wireframes

Image of Task Prioritization screen flow
 
 

Where’s the Prototype?

Watch the video at the top of the page to see me click through a low-fidelity prototype.

Tangible Next Steps

This project had a very short timeline, and because I was the only designer on the job, there’s still a lot to do.

I want to conduct more usability testing to discover flaws in the Task Prioritization user flow. The sign-up and random assuagement features are critical for differentiating this app. from other project management software you might see in a business setting, so I want to ensure this flow is ironed out.

Additionally, I would like to develop more user flows to expand features (such as a Budgeting Tracker because all users mentioned the importance of creating and staying within a budget, which can be tricky when friends are involved).

Eventually (pun intended), I would like to create mid and high-fidelity wireframes to further bring this project to life.