Chenkang Kenny Wu
Portfolio
Planning an event is hard. The nuances of planning are often the hidden elements that make your getaway trip feel more draining than your job. This application aims to help people eliminate these stressors that block them from having a good time.
Nymph promised to change the narrative. Nymph wasn't just another calendar or planner; it was an assistant that stepped in to shoulder the tedious nuances, ensuring users not only felt proud as hosts but also created meaningful memories with loved ones.
Should we be content with our current way of planning for a get away trip?
At work, coordinating with someone remotely was hard. In life, others had their own schedules, you had yours, and this often resulted in you having to add another item on the to-list. Tackling with this particular "pain point" name planning in life: why should one not ask for more comfort in planning? Because no competitors explore the act of "Planning".
A dynamic casual planner that decreases plan time with analysis and visualization.
Streamlining the planning workflow led us to breakdown the mind of a planner. Their ultimate goal might be simple as enjoying a beer whiling looking at the sunset, but the journey getting is packed with tasks especially with a group of people. Thats why in the final solution I decipher each step of the process and accelerated the process using quantifiable metrics to simplify the planning process.
What is event? What is planning?
Narrowing the brief...
If theres is a way to design a end-to-end application in four weeks I would love to learn. Event is a category of thousands of activities. Wether it is Inviting friends to your house or a business research trip that you and your team is going, they are fundamentally event planning. In this application design I focused on events that are casual and meaningful.
Event Planning Cycle
Planning a casual event, like camping, always comes after you decided that you deserve to relax. Want to look at the orange circle go down and bath under the stars. The goal is clear, then your head starts spinning on who you want to share this with. With you list of qualifiers, you invite them to plan with you over messages, but you guys all seem to follow the hidden rule of not sending any messages over 20 words. And this goes on and on for a couple of days. When everything is set, you pull out your note book to check if anyone is vegetarian because you are preparing food for everyone. You organize and check off a list of to-dos and you are finally ready to have fun.
According to project management, the six phase of planning are: Define goal, planning, feedback, organize, Iterate, and finalize. The majority of planning gets ugly when the means of communication is group chat. However, portion of the people relies on its convenience and accepted the hassle.
How do people feel when they plan?
I conducted six interviews that are highly focused on gathering stressors in event planning. I conducted the interviews where I asked them to share a story of them attending a casual event they hosted, then ask them how they planned it. Interestingly all the participants left out the planning process and the reason behind that is because they do not want to relive the process of planning.
If their planning experience is that horrific, why don't they find alternative ways? 84% of participants told me despite frustrating the planning phase is there were never a solution that triumphs the convenience of SNS.
The main consideration of stress-free planning:
An seamless planning experience
The key to unlocking a tranquil, stress-free event planning experience lies in understanding and addressing the core stress points. Introducing some actionable themes to create a nimble, well-defined structure that seamlessly accommodates diverse planning styles.
Theme 1: Communication
Users thinks that planning with a SNS group chat is jarring but enjoys talking to others before the event.
Users are more likely to plan faster with some kind of feedback loop designed for event planning.
There are many data that effects final decisions in planning, and users are more likely to consider everyone when quantifiable data is visualized.
Theme 2: Goal Setting
When given a place to organize information users are more likely to focus and finish strong.
When collaboration is needed, users most likely will have a lot of questions for their guests.
The faster and easier the planning phase is, the more the stressors were reduced.
Theme 3: Platform
If the platform is free, users are more likely to use it because all their friends can join the planning process.
Planning is a often on the way, by adopting a mobile first approach we can appeal to wider range of users.
Users find it time saving to make a decision seeing data, such as votes and preferences, visually.
Persona & Storyboard
The organizers of the bunch
Venturing into the expansive realm of event planning, I profiled my primary user being people who love organizing social events to have a good time,. These people are often the friend who hits you up for a party or a camping trip to national park.
Visualizing user journeys
Visualizing this tale helped lay out the potential user's journey, weaving the project's goals into a saga of challenges and triumphs.
How can we design an intuitive user flow?
The onboarding process should be engaging yet succinct, with a brief tutorial for newcomers and a streamlined login for returning users. Upon entry, users are directed to create an event, inputting essential details, and then curating their guest list with options to import contacts. Following this, a survey option allows for gauging guest preferences, with results displayed on an intuitive dashboard and visualized through graphic reports. Centralized communication ensures all parties stay updated, and post-event feedback captures reflections and insights for app improvement.
"Transient Summer Showers"
In the heart of summer, when the world appears to sizzle and shimmer, a sudden downpour feels like nature's own reset button. It's that unanticipated moment where time seems to halt momentarily, where there's a palpable shift in the atmosphere, a break from the room.
Wireframing & testing
3 findings that fueled the high-fid redesign
Below is me trying to explore a style that would never made it to development. After conducting an usability study on version one I designed to redesign base on the following findings.
The image showcased my first go at the visuals. I wanted to explore skin-morphism as representation of that planning flow state, however, after user testing and technical considerations I transitioned into a flatter UI.
Due to interface complexity, testers find themselves distracted and often lose track of what their next task is. After trying to add built-in feature explanations, and realizing the point of friction between the UI and the users I implemented these assist notes within the redesign.
A designer's dream is a engineer's nightmare. Aside from the interface being overly stylized, the layout and grid of elements too lacks ingenuity. Application of atomic design principles simplifies the UI and decrease engineering efforts without compromising functionality.
View Figma File
A robust user dashboard featuring live wether status, a calendar, ongoing events, upcoming reminder, drafts, and a warm welcome.
Community driven template library allow users to use existing templates to speed up the process of figuring out what to plan or create their own templates and save it for repeating events.
The planning phase provides a comprehensive survey building tool with all the tool kit needed to create any event, no matter how complicated it is. This space helps planners to visualize goals and create an efficient means of communication.
After completing the onboarding survey users can preview the survey and pick their guest from their friend list. The friend list provides data of individuals pre-fill preferences, such as dietary restriction or work schedules.
After everyone filled out their survey, the application will plot the data into charts and graphs so users can know their customer at one glance.
To take automation to the next level, I implemented a assist AI to analysis each guest's preferences compare to every single choice option that is available. From that analysis, the AI produces a satisfaction score and short insight on the choice. Allow users to ensure their final decisions were on-par to the groups' likings.
With the event finalized, we then unlock the waiting room. The event dashboard is where users can view event details or make any announcements to the group. Users also have the flexibility to start another pole or give any suggestions through a new survey.
What we achieved and what's next...
An efficient event-planning app.
Since the launch of our event-planning application, we've seen an impressive 35% reduction in overall planning cycle. With 90% of users reporting that they will use the application personally, daily. Additionally, the AI Suggestions feature has contributed tremendously to the overall success of the project by addressing the pain-points in decision making.
What are some next steps moving forward?
In the domain of application design and development, the process is always iterative. Our current design, though robust and effective, is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we envision for the future.
As we move forward, it's clear that our application is teeming with potential that's waiting to be unlocked. The primary user flow we've elaborated on thus far serves as the backbone of our platform. However, owing to time constraints, there were facets we couldn't delve into as deeply as we'd have liked.
Beyond functionality, I believe in fostering a sense of community among our users. Introducing features like user profiles, event histories, ratings, and reviews, not only serves as a testament to our app's efficacy but also encourages peer-to-peer interaction. This community-driven quality control ensures our platform remains by the users, for the users.
