I first analyzed a few established companies that were leaders in the same industry. These included Eventbrite, Meetup and Facebook. After investigating their designs and solutions I noted things I liked and things I didn’t like about the user flow and action items to include in my designs. After conducting a competitive analysis I conducted some secondary research and also user interviews.

Some questions I wanted answers to:

1. What are some main reasons for not attending social events/activities after RSVPing?

2. What strategies have been used to help with social anxiety or other reasons for not attending?

3. Have any of these strategies been shown to be effective?

USER INTERVIEWS

I conducted 5 remote moderated user interviews. From the interviews I gained knowledge on why people missed an event they rsvp’d to in the past and motivators that helped them follow-through and show up.

• 80% said that they didn’t show up to an event they rsvp’d to because they forgot about

• 20% said it was because something came up last minute or they simply decided they didn’t feel like it at the last minute.

• 100% said that they were less likely to miss an event if they paid for it (which is of no surprise that money is a huge motivator for people to follow through, however what about free events?).

• 80% of the interviewees also said that they were more likely to go if they had a friend or someone they knew that was going, so having that accountability and comfort from friends that are also attending the event.

• And another number one determining factor of going is strength of interest (how interested they were in the event itself).

“Yea, it’s nice to feel like you're included before you've even met anyone”

SYNTHESIZING RESEARCH

From the information gathered between articles and user interviews, it was apparent that one of the most important factors that determined whether users went to an event that they rsvp’d to was if they had to pay for the event, however next after that was receiving up-to-date and clear information/details on the event itself and receiving clear notifications, emails and reminders about the event. Not only that, but people were more likely to go to an event if they felt comfortable or connected to others attending (for example having a friend), or possibly even group communication involvement between event organizers and/or other event attendees before the event. Making people feel excited, and welcomed socially,  connected them before attending the event.

RED ROUTES AND USER FLOWS

Using my MVP’s and site map, I created my red routes and user flows. I wanted the user to be able to easily find an event that they want to attend and successful RSVP to it, be able to change their RSVP status from “attending” to “not attending” (in the event that they decided they no longer wanted to attend), be able to easily access their notifications (to find reminders, messages and invites for events), and be able to share an event with a friend. One example, to change RSVP status, is shown below.

SKETCHES

Before hopping on the computer and getting right into creating my low fidelity designs, I wanted to quickly sketch out some design ideas using pen and paper. I knew I wanted to incorporate some kind of card carousel but wasn’t exactly sure yet of how I wanted the overall feel of the design to be so this helped me develop my ideas and mess around with placement of some features.

LOW FIDELITY INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPE

GUERRILLA TESTING

For my first round of Usability Testing I conducted a Guerrilla test using my low fidelity wireframes. All tests were administered in-person, via the Marvel app. I wanted to see if participants were able to complete the red route tasks I created to see if the design was straightforward and easy to use.

The main issues:

• users had noticed that there was nowhere to find their tickets for the events they had rsvp’d to if they had purchased a ticket

• some users weren’t exactly sure where to find all of their upcoming events to go to change their RSVP status

  Other feedback:

• the card size could be a bit bigger so that users could see important details of the event more clearly

• there was confusion of “Join Group” and “Follow group”

• images/thumbnails or categories would have made the explore process more engaging for users

HIGH FIDELITY INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPE

USABILITY TESTING (ROUND 2)

I received a lot of positive feedback from users, but also discovered some things that could still be improved. One of the major issues I found during this round of testing related to the apps user feedback. Participants were unsure if they had selected or clicked on certain buttons and were waiting for some sort of feedback and when it wasn’t given turned to me to ask if it “registered/went through”. Mainly users were concerned when adding the event to their calendar and when sharing an event with a friend, but also when choosing categories to search on the “explore” screens. Other minor suggestions such as being able to see how many friends/contacts (through Facebook or Instagram) that they knew that were already attending the events and also iterating the “explore” screen, so that users were more clear on the fact that they could either search using the “search field” OR by entering in the “blanks” (where examples are placed) to search for events.

ITERATION

Based on the findings from my second round of testing I iterated my designs. I decided to use different trigger words and examples on the explore screen along with graying out the bottom portion of the explore page in the event that the user decided to go ahead and use the search field so that they couldn’t fill out both the search field and then also the blanks. I designed screens to provide users with feedback of which choices they selected for the day and type of event along with giving user feedback of assurance that their event had been added to their personal calendar after RSVPing to an event. In response from user feedback, I added information on event screens, notifying whether or not they had any connections through facebook, instagram or phone contacts already attending the events they were interested in. Lastly, I added a second action when sending/sharing an event invite, allowing the user to send directly through whichever platform of their choosing and confirm the send action. Below is a prototype of EVENTures.