Scene It
User Research · Usability Testing · Interaction Design · Product Branding
Overview.
Think about what it’s like trying to find underground or alternative events in your community. If you’re not already part of a particular scene how do you find interesting local shows, art galleries, food pop ups or indie film festivals? We live in a world with a massive amount of information at our finger tips, yet it is fragmented across multiple platforms lost in a sea of abundance.
Role.
I worked alongside a Senior Designer who acted as a mentor and collaborator. All of the work you see here from user research to mockups I did myself.
May 6th - June 19th, 2020
Relating to the Problem.
To kick off my research I decided to reach out and interview my peers in creative communities and gather insights. Through my conversations I discovered that:
Event organizers relied on word of mouth for underground events rather than social media
Low turnout usually meant that people didn't know about the event
Individuals would be more likely to attend events if they were suggested by sources they trusted
Product Vision and Solution.
From my findings above I was able to define some specific business goals:Looked for deeper levels of customization
I want events to be posted by "Tastemakers" — users who have intimate knowledge of organizing and attending underground events
I want potential Tastemakers to be vetted by completing a 30 question quiz
I want users to take action in attending events that look interesting to support local arts communities
I want to deliver a platform based on the "word of mouth" concept
As a starting point, I did some market research on competitors to investigate the current offerings in the market. I was able to take inspiration from particular features that I liked about each app and identify areas where I could provide novel solutions to my particular problem.
I then developed a customer map to visualize users meeting their end goal and conducted a short sketching session to work out ideas.
Minimum Viable Product.
After ideating possible solutions through my customer map and sketches I circled back to the empathize stage and asked some How Might We questions. This allowed me to view my ideas through the lens of the user to ensure that I wasn't straying from the central problem of finding underground events.
How might we build trust between Tastemakers and Attendees?
How might we design a Tastemaker quiz that entices users to become Tastemakers?
How might we improve discoverability of underground events?
How might we integrate events with users personal calendars?
I grouped the most important How Might We questions together into similar categories and prioritized them using a prioritization matrix.
The Process.
The Scene It app is designed to work on two fronts. I not only wanted to deliver a delightful experience for Attendees looking for underground events in their community but I also had to ensure that the experience would delight Tastemakers posting events as well. I kicked off my design process by building out a user flow for each experience.
Go With the Flow.
I had already worked out some sketches when defining my product vision and determining the MVP but now I wanted to establish a user flow. I used my sketches to create two user flows — one for the Tastemaker and one for the Attendee. Then I jumped into Balsamiq and translated my user flow into low-fidelity mockups.
Getting Started.
Once I had my low-fidelity mockup created I started on my high-fidelity screens in Sketch.
I started with a simple welcome screen where users can sign up with their email, Google or Facebook accounts. If users already have an account they can simply sign in.
Choose What You Like.
Part of the onboarding process asks users to choose at least three interests so that we can provide events based on what they like.
Browsing Events.
Events will populate on the home screen and users will be able to scroll through events based on the interests they chose when signing up.
Tastemaker Quiz.
Once a user has signed up they can choose to become a Tastemaker by taking the quiz on their profile page.
Takeaways.
I waited to conduct a usability test until I finished my high-fidelity screens, which turned out to be a mistake. I received great feedback from my friends, family and my mentor regarding some of the design elements that I overlooked, such as inconsistent icons in the navigation menu, which were quickly remedied.
Some key takeaways from this project were:
Testing and iteration are key. By designing my high-fidelity mockup without conducting a usability test with a low-fidelity prototype I lost valuable time fixing mistakes that could have been avoided.
Design sprints are a great way to organize information. The condensed nature of a design sprint helped me to stay focused on my objective and organize my ideas into useful solutions.
Focus on the MVP. It would have been very easy for me to get carried away building out extravagant solutions and unnecessary features but focusing on my MVP allowed me to keep the users needs front and center.