Young adults are increasing the amount of experiences that they go on, however finding activities and planning trips has remained stressful. My team and I ran 9 sprints covering the entire design thinking process. We shipped an MVP of our app that helps young adults plan and discover local experiences. While my entire team conducted initial research, got feedback on our prototypes, and made design decisions, I was responsible for creating the sitemap, wireframes, prototypes, and handing off the design requirements to the developers.
My team and I hypothesized that young adults face challenges when planning fun and unique experiences with their friends because of conflicting interests and schedules as well as there being no central platform for organization.
How might we help young adults coordinate better?
In this case study. I’ll walk you through our process, and how we designed an app that makes planning and discovering local experiences more efficient.
Prototype persona
My team and I created a prototype persona based off of our own assumptions and personal experiences of the problem. This persona has not been validated by research however it helped us align quickly and identify how we were going to conduct research.
My team and I sent out a survey to validate our persona Sarah. It revealed that 76% of Gen Z responders claim that they desire to have more experiences over physical goods. However, 30% of planned experiences never happen.
What do young adults think, do, hear, see, say, and feel?
We contacted 10 participants for 1 on 1 interviews where we learned about how young adults plan experiences and decide what to do. Putting the insights together into an empathy map helped us to empathize rather than just view them as data.
During our interviews, young adults told us that they primarily use Google to find activities however they also use apps such as Instagram, TikTok, Eventbrite, and Yelp. These apps offer too many choices, not enough great visuals, and little to no features for coordination.
For coordination, most young adults stick to text messaging. Sometimes multiple platforms are used which causes confusion.
Analysis paralysis
Some people struggled with choosing between a variety of options so they leave the decision to someone else. This is also referred to as Hick's Law.
Dislike planning
There is a lot of pressure on the one planner to find a great place or activity, schedule the time, and get a group together. Many planners feel that it is too much effort and stop.
Difficulty finding unique experiences
Only the most popular places get advertised however they get crowded and expensive. There is not a great way to find under-the-radar spots without the effort to search social media or Google.
After our discovery research, we realized that we were dealing with two types of young adults not just Sarah.
Ashley is the planner in her friend group. Ashley is our primary persona.
Joe is more spontaneous and lets his friends make plans. Joe is our secondary persona.
Before starting to design, we wanted to find overlaps between the user needs we uncovered and the business goals. This helped us to prioritize the coordination and discovery of local experiences.
Business Goals
User Needs
My team and I used Crazy Eights to brainstorm solutions.
There was a lot of overlapping ideas however the workshop also introduced unique ideas such as a social club that would eliminate the need for planning an experience for friend groups. After each person shared their ideas, my team judged the ideas based on feasibility, usability, and viability.
Although a social club sounds like it could be a good solution, none of us knew how to create it. We do know how to make apps and websites. We decided that our solution was an app that uses machine learning to personalize the user's options and create a simple flow for planning.
Using our initial information architecture as guidance, I developed wireframes so my team can see what I had envisioned would be an ideal flow and structure. I believed these wireframes worked well because they simplified the process of discovering experiences into a dating app style flow and planning a trip became a streamlined process.
Once I shared my initial wireframe, my team told me that it was too complicated to be an mvp. I realized they were right and redesigned it. I combined the Discover Experiences and Planning a Trip flows into one and cut down the number of screens without getting rid of the critical information. This helps achieve the goal of increasing the number of trips planned.
I created a trip planning flow that allows everyone that was invited to be an active member, if they wish, which helps to align communication. Also the flow ends with the users creating a trip group so that all of the trip details and communication can remain within the app and not scattered.
The app reduces the decision time to choose an experience because the highlights and details stand out. The user can easily swipe right to like an experience or swipe left to dislike.
A style guide ensures visual and UX consistency across all features within WKNDR. It establishes design standards and a common language that unifies the look, feel, and behavior. This provides a seamless user experience.
For usability testing, I reached out to the customer discovery interview participants as well as young adults through local events and around the nearby university. We tested the prototype with 24 users and the feedback was majority positive.
After launching the MVP of WKNDR, we had a difficult time attracting and retaining users. We realized that during our research, we did not properly screen participants so a lot of the insights we were using were biased. By the time, my team and I learned the mistake, the deadline for the project was near.
Define the research phase: When my team first started to conduct research, we did not properly define responsibilities, research goals, timeline, and KPIs. We did end up fixing this and created a thorough research plan.
Move forward with conviction: It is important for me to articulate my design decisions, get product alignment, and provide strong design leadership.
Details matter: Making sure that the spacing between elements was consistent throughout the entire design made a big difference in the end design. Setting up the design system with proper labels for the developer really helped streamline the design handoff.
Design with customers: Talking to customers especially when screened helps to ensure that a valuable and not just an aesthetically pleasing design is created.
