PartyCentral
summary:
The objective of this project was to create a website for working mothers. PartyCentral will support the multitasking and shopping needs of working mothers by providing them options for their event planning needs.
Role: UX Researcher and Designer
Methods: Interviews, COMPETITIVE analysis, recruitment, Personas, Jouneymaps, Usability testing, Prototyping, ui
Date: 2018 (2 months)
Type: E-commerce website
Company: class project for General Assembly.
Problem:
Working mothers are always trying to balance their work life with family life. They try to plan the best birthday parties for their children but that entails a lot of juggling and coordination. They need a consolidated method to plan and shop for these special events. It is exhausting to plan events while running the household and working.
Solution:
PartyCentral is a “one stop shop” platform for everything that a working mother needs to achieve her event planning goals.
Research Goals/Empathy building:
Identify strengths and weaknesses of event planning and provide opportunities for improvement.
Discover how the target user experiences event planning. What does the market offer?
Identify the role event planning plays in the users’ lives.
Research Methods:
To answer the research questions, I conducted 10 interviews with suburban mothers. I focused on identifying the current barriers, envision ideal experiences and understand the emotional impact on the user.
I started with open ended questions e.g. “Are there any limitations or frustrations with the process of event planning? If so, can you tell me more about them?”
“As a Mum, I am always rushing around and don’t need more responsibilities but I still want to throw my kids the best party in town”.
Synthesis
Mapping
Competitive Analysis of direct and indirect markets to learn from and understand what is out there.
personas
Affinity Mapping
Insights and Findings
“As a party host, I want to order my prepared meals & arrange for professional help, in order to throw a party…. I just wish everything related to event planning can be done in one place.”
Solution Proposals:
How can we make event planning less stressful and more efficient for our target audience?
Consolidate all the shopping venues in one place - this saves time and is more organized
Mothers want a rating system of trusted vendors and service providers
Mothers want to recreate an event - services used before budget
Provide contextual information at the right time - push notifications rather than have the user seek out the information (weather, delivery notifications).
Wireframing
Usability Testing
Mothers wanted to have the option of saving items to different lists that they multitask.
Mothers didn’t want to rely on memory, therefore saving to favorites was a feature they appreciated.
Through the usability tests, participants expressed interest in wanting to share items with other mothers.
Deliverable recommendations:
Mothers wanted access to past orders details to:
recreate events with the same budget
Revisit past orders that were a success.
Past service providers that can help reinvent past experience.
Reflections:
Why is it better than existing solutions?
seamless of use in design: Speed in work flow and ease of use in leveraging day to day tasks.
Target audience wants to rely on a system that meets their individual needs.
Multitasking in one place
Mothers will come back to see their prior lists, orders, and budgets
Mothers don’t need to go to different sites to arrange a party-all party supplies and resources are on one site (so they can compare prices and themes)