BLACKSTAR FARMS, END-TO-END MOBILE APPLICATION
ROLE:
UX Designer, UI Designer, UX Researcher
TIMELINE:
4 months start to finish
THE PRODUCT:
Create a ceremony checklist for a rustic wedding venue which includes planning, budgeting, payment options, venue information, and layout.
THE PROBLEM:
Busy brides/grooms lack time and need to stay organized.
THE GOAL:
Create a simple & useful app that helps brides/grooms stay organized for the big day.
RESEARCH:
Summary:
I have conducted interviews and created empathy maps to understand the users I’m designing for and their needs. A primary user group identified through research was working brides/grooms that needed to say organized during stressful times.
5 participants participated in an individual interview and moderated study. A competitive audit was also completed during the research phase.
This user group confirmed initial assumptions about the need for a checklist but also added the importance of staying on budget, better communication, and lack of inclusivity between homosexual dating apps.
DEFINE:
🗺️Aggregated Empathy Map:
☹️User's Pain Points:
Time - Working adults need help, guidance, and reminders of all the details that needed to be completed for a wedding. Finding time to meet during the week is a struggle.
Finances- Most brides/grooms stressed the difficulty of staying on budget due to needing to shop vendors, etc.
Lack of Representation - Homosexual community felt the lack of representation due to not having verbiage, images/videos, and options that made them feel included.
👤Persona:
Using the results of secondary research and the interviews, I created a persona that consisted of two members: Jessica & Andrew.
❗Problem statement:
Jessica is a busy teacher and coach who needs to plan her wedding on a budget because she’s on a fixed income.
❗Problem statement:
Andrew is a busy hair salon owner to been disappointed by the lack of representation for the LGBT community & would like an easy way to communicate with his bridal party.
🗺️User journey map:
Mapping Jessica’s user journey revealed how helpful it would be for users to have access to a simple budgeting tool for her wedding planning.
DESIGN:
📃Paper wireframe: Taking the time to draft iterations of each screen of the app on paper ensured that the elements that made it to digital wireframes would be well-suited to address user pain points. I prioritized the checklist on the homepage due to needing to constantly update it.
💻Digital wireframe: Taking the time to draft iterations of each screen of the app on paper ensured that the elements that made it to digital wireframes would be well-suited to address user pain points. I prioritized the checklist on the homepage due to needing to constantly update categories.
Low-fidelity prototype - The low-fidelity prototype connected the primary user flow of the checklist and budget section, so the prototype could be used in a usability study with users.
>>View Blackstar Farms Lo-Fi prototype here.
📗Usability study findings:
I conducted two rounds of usability studies. Findings from the first study helped guide the designs from wireframes to mockups. The second study used a high-fidelity prototype and revealed what aspects of the mockups needed refining.
Round 1 findings:
Users need to quickly update the checklist
Users wanted tools to help say on budget
Users wanted to communicate with individuals and groups in the app
Round 2 findings:
The ‘submit’ button was confusing to users
The checklist & budget needed to communicate together
TEST:
Early designs had a checklist but it included too many steps. After the usability studies, I removed the submit button due to the user becoming too frustrated and confused in the user flow.
The second usability study revealed users were confused if they properly completed the task due to the budget section not automatically recalculating.
The high-fidelity prototype - The final high-fidelity prototype presented cleaner user flows for planning and budgeting.
>>View the Blackstar Farms Hi-Fi prototype here.
♿Accessibility considerations:
Provided access to users who are visually impaired by adding alt text to images for screen readers
Used icons to help make navigation easier
Used high-contrast colors to ensure easy readability
CONCLUSION:
THE IMPACT:
The app makes users feel like Blackstar Farms really thinks about how to meet their needs.
WHAT I LEARNED:
While designing the Blackstar Farms app, I learned that the first ideas for the app are only the beginning of the process. Usability studies and peer feedback influenced each iteration of the app’s designs.
NEXT STEPS:
Conduct another round of usability studies to validate whether the pain points users experienced have been effectively addressed
Conduct more user research to determine any new areas of need
**This is a hypothetical case study**