Oh So Simple

Designing A Tech-Enabled, Systematic Approach To The Wedding Planning Process

Objective

Oh So Simple is a company established to create a tech-enabled, systematic approach to the wedding planning process. Co-founded by a wedding planner and web developer, they dreamed of developing a mobile app that would serve as a one-stop shop for planning everything “after the engagement and before the honeymoon”. With such a large vision, they were unsure where to start and needed help.

My team’s objective was to build an easy to use client facing mobile product that would save the user time and money, as well as introduce them to resources and experienced planners within the app.

Timeline:

3 weeks

My Role:

I collaborated with a team of 3 designers as the Researcher, Strategist, and User Interface Designer.

What I Did:

User Surveys and Interviews
Worked with Stakeholder on Scope
User Flows
Wire-framing
Usability Testing

Methods Used:

User Interviews
Affinity Mapping
Task Analysis
Scenarios/User Flows
Sketch Prototype

We used the Double Diamond method to build empathy for the end users and to gain a better understanding their product needs. This approach also enables us to explore creative ways to meet those needs.

Discovery

Our stakeholders had already completed a significant amount of competitive analysis from prominent companies in the space like The Knot, Wedding Wire, and Thumbtack. Their analysis gave us a snapshot of the variety of offerings in the wedding planning space. However, Oh So Simple was still unclear about the approach they wanted to take, so we decided to research a little more to see if there were any pain points that weren’t being addressed by the other apps.

We created a 20-question survey to learn more about users’ wedding planning experiences, and their frustrations. We received 109 responses from people who either recently planned their own or someone else’s wedding, hired a planner, or were starting the planning process soon. In addition we conducted 10 in-person interviews with some of the people who completed a survey. The interviews allowed us to pull out more qualitative data from the surveys.

Survey Results

We used the data collected from the surveys and interviews to create an affinity diagram. With the data sorted out, we were able to nail down some common themes and opportunities we could address to improve the wedding planning process.

Additional Insight: Inclusivity

Out of the 100+ surveys, 3 people commented that they felt most wedding planning sites catered primarily to women. One user even pointed out how our team unconsciously used the word “bridal party” instead of “wedding party” in one of the survey questions. Even though only a small number of users brought it up, we felt it was important to be mindful of our wording, the images we’d use, and the overall theme in order to create a more inclusive product.

Redefining the Problem

Problem

The wedding planning process lacks transparency and organization, leaving Maricella feeling stressed and overwhelmed. She needs a simple, centralized tool to help her organize her wedding, including finding a planner.

Solution

By creating a trustworthy product with centralized tools and a matching service feature, the wedding planning process for Maricella will be more streamlined and stress-free.

Conceptualization and Design

Feature Prioritization

From the outset of the project we knew that Oh So Simple Weddings would be a large platform to build. With only a few weeks to design, we narrowed our focus into 2 primary components.

Sketching user flows on paper and whiteboard helped us brainstorm how we could simplify our minimum viable product (MVP), without compromising the user experience. Healthy debates and great ideas arose as we considered how our persona Maricella would move through the app. Some questions we wrestled through were:

Prototyping

After several rounds of paper sketching designs, I created a medium fidelity prototype. The goal was to make administration tasks feel feel easy. On the right wire-frame, the “tools” buttons were created as large tiles to give the feeling of simplicity and quick access.  

Usability Testing and Iteration

We had 3 users test our medium fidelity wire-frame prototype, tasking them to create an account, and to try and find a wedding planner through the app. The site tested well for creating an account and finding a planner, yet the user feedback we observed let us know there were things we needed to fine tune. 

Simplified Onboarding

In our original flow we handheld the user through every step by asking a series of questions before arriving at the dashboard. Users preferred getting straight to the dashboard. The solution was remove any unnecessary questions to get them to the dash right away.

Identifiable Icons

Our original icons weren’t obvious to the user, making it harder to navigate the site. We changed up the icons and added labels to make it clearer.

Final User Flow

High Fidelity Screens

Reflection

Our presentation for the shareholders was a success and they’ll be moving forward with building the app using our design. If given an additional 3 weeks to add more features, I would focus on building out the following: