UX Case Study: Design a Party App
Help Expat find where to go for clubbing
Why Party App?
I found out that it’s challenging to find where to go for clubbing in a new city through living in five different cities around Europe in 2017.
Through this case study, I want to find out whether or not people have the same problem and if so, design a solution to solve it.
The Brief
Design a mobile app for expat party lovers to look for bars, clubs and events they like in a new city so they save time on researching where to go.
My Role: UX/UI designer (individual project)
Duration: 2 weeks (full-time), Sep 2017
Tools & Methods: Design Thinking, User Interview, Persona, User Journey, User Flow, A/B Testing, Hand Sketching, Sketch, InVision
The Problem
After interviewing 5 users, I confirmed that:
It’s challenging to find where to go for clubbing by location and interests in a new city.
Currently, users need to go through a long process of searching on google and still not getting what they want! In addition, there is no product in the market that addresses the problem effectively (in my competitor research so far).
My Solution
Let me walk you through in 1 min! Imagine now that you want to find a bar and then a party event in Taipei (my hometown) and then watch the demo.
Or try the prototype here https://invis.io/PBDTBP39D.
If you have time, read on for my process :)
Empathize: User Interview
For this project, I started by doing a quick research on who the target users are and then interviewed 5 of them to gain insights to shape the solution. I defined interview objectives and questions before starting the interviews.
Target users
The target users is “working expats who love clubbing”. I focused on this type of user because they like to explore the nightlife in a new city; hence, would be the frequent users of my product. On the contrary, locals generally know where to go and travelers usually just visit the most popular club.
Objectives
- Find out how users search where to go for clubbing when they just move to a new city.
- Discover users’ night out journey: What do they do in their night out? When, where and how do they make the decisions (where to go exactly)? I used 6W approach (what, when, where, who, how and why) to uncover insights and pain points.
I then organized my interview notes in excel so it’s easy to identify patterns for a same topic.
Define
The interviews helped me justify the problem I identified initially and discover interesting insights and common behaviors of my users. All the insights helped me shape the solution later on.
Insight#1: Users find it hard searching where to go for clubbing
They always start by google search for clubs in the new city and then check the search results from big sites such as TimeOut and Resident Advisor. However, they always end up seeing a laundry list of clubs and events and they have to check one by one to know where exactly the place is and what type of music it plays. The process is time-consuming and tiring for them.
Insight#2: LOCATION first!
The most important factor users consider when planning a night out is the location! — Where is the party, if it is in a lively area, how far is it from their homes and if there is any party in the area they want to go. I have to find a way to help them locate the party places in a easy way.
Insight#3: Users start the night out at a bar, not a club.
On a Friday night out, the first thing they do is to have a drink after work. They think about which bar to go first rather than which club. After having some drinks at a couple of bars, they finally go to a nightclub at around 1am. Interestingly, users said that the bars are actually more important to them than the clubs in a night out. Therefore, I might consider to add a bar section to the product.
Insight#4: Users have their own criteria in choosing the places.
In order to help them find what they like, I asked the criteria they care about and how important each factor is for them when choosing bars/clubs/events. This information helped me design filters catered to their needs.
Insight#5: Users are improvisers. They don’t plan.
For a Friday night out, 4 out of 5 users don’t plan where to go in advance. Instead, they decide “at the moment.” At 6pm, users decide which bar to go first when they finish work at office. At 9pm, while at the first bar, they decide which bar to go next. It is at midnight (when they are almost drunk…), when they decide which club to go. This insight helped me catch the touch points and the context of users interacting with my product.
“There is no why. I just don’t plan! — Adam”
Persona
From the insights above, I defined 3 must-have features in my solution.
- Search for bars to have a drink to start the night out
- See all bars, clubs and events on a map so users can easily locate them.
- Filter the places by their interests.
Ideate
Next, I drew the user flow to map out the navigation in different scenarios to design possible screens and then I did the hand-sketching and hi-fi mockup and prototype to test with users for iteration.
User Flow
Search bars, clubs and events on Friday night.
Hand Sketching
I sketched out possible solutions. At the same time, I listed down and prioritized the information users want to see in short and long listings across bar, club and event sections. This step is important because I have to design a consistent layout accommodating all necessary information in each section.
Hi-fi Mockup
Instead of designing the whole screen directly, I started by designing the common UI elements across sections and experimented different typefaces, font sizes and colors. This approach helped me define style efficiently and achieve consistency.
A/B Testing and Iteration
From hand-sketching to hi-fi mockup, I did several A/B qualitative testings to help me make critical design decisions.
Prototype
In case you missed it earlier. Again, imagine now that you want to find a bar and then a party event in Taipei (my hometown) and then watch the 1-min demo.
Or try the prototype here https://invis.io/PBDTBP39D.
Iterate, Iterate, Iterate…
I quickly posted the prototype to the public to gather feedback for iteration. People gave me some good ideas! One idea helped me find a way to put all bars/clubs/events on one single map so users can see clusters. I quickly sketched the idea on paper to see how it could work.
Takeaways
This project was so much fun! I learned the power of user research. I was excited when I discovered that users behave in ways I would have never thought of. I was also amazed by how effectively A/B testing helped me make decisions. I’m really looking forward to continuing with this process: design, test, iterate, design, test, iterate…for this product.
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