WaveFinder

Background

WaveFinder is an app that allows people to invite others to exclusive and invite-only events. This app is in its early stages, and I was hired to lead out in product design. My role was to research and design screens for the minimum viable product that would enable users to share and get access to events. *** Talk about how the pandemic affected this app coming out ***

Gathering Context

Before doing anything else, I did as much competitive and secondary research as possible. In my initial research two things stood out:

1. People were able to get into exclusive and invite-only events through networking and cultivating relationships. 

2. A lot of people were getting scammed, paying hundreds of dollars to get false insight on various events. This shows a vulnerability many people have in getting into events and the extent they will go to get into them. Users wanted authentic and trustworthy information.

In order to get more data and insights, I created a  screener to help identify participants to interview. I have a background in Digital Marketing, so I was able to use those skills to promote the screener through Instagram and Facebook. From there, I ended up with five participants to interview.

Participants included bloggers, musicians, influencers, socialites and people that worked in event and entertainment management. It was important for participants to feel comfortable and open with me. Seeing that some participants lived in a different time zone than me, I had to get creative. So, I utilized voice notes to conduct some interviews. One participant commented on how comfortable and fluid the conversation felt using this method.

Personas

Based on the interviews I set up two personas. I referred to them throughout the entire product development process.

Minimum Viable Product and Design Objectives

Now with the personas in place to design for, I needed to set the minimum viable product for the app’s first version based on the insights I gathered from user research. While interviewing potential users, the word “genuine” kept popping up. Both the plug and the invitee wanted to be able to trust each other. This information was the foundation to creating the user flow. This user flow was iterated on through critiques and user testing.

After conducting user interviews, I gathered notes and insights into an affinity map. While synthesizing those notes some more, I realized there were two types of users- the plug and the invitee. The plug would be the person who usually knows when events are happening and how to get in and the invitee would be the person who wants to get connected to the plug to get invited to these events. I then went ahead and created an empathy map to reflect both types of users’ behaviors, pain points, needs, and goals.

Ideation

It was time to put my pen to my paper and start ideating a design. Using the user flow, I sketched up some initial wireframes. I then uploaded my wireframes to the Marvel app to use for user testing.

Prototype

Based on this feedback, I started to build a high fidelity prototype in Adobe XD to do more usability testing.  

Participants used in user research were selected for usability testing. I split participants into two types. The first, the invitee, and the second, the plug. My goal was to gain any insights on how the app could be more intuitive and to see how users interacted with screens (user behaviours, motivations of behaviours).

Initial testing of the prototype showed some issues that required more work. After the first usability testing, I implemented changes that ranged from minor to major and then sought out five new users to test again. 

During the second usability testing, I wanted to see how users identified between read vs. not read notifications. I went ahead and used the traditional bullet point, as well as color. What I found was that users were often confused, and preferred just utilizing the bullet point to distinguish between read vs. not read notifications.

Another key finding from the second round of interviewing users was the usage of color. When I tested users for the second time, dark mode for iOS just came out. Users brought up utilizing colors I used initially instead for dark mode, and suggested using a lighter hue for day mode. I found that interesting. It goes to show that new features can impact users’ experience. Consistently testing and retesting users can lead to new findings.

During the second usability testing, I wanted to see how users identified between read vs. not read notifications. I went ahead and used the traditional bullet point, as well as colour. What I found was that users were often confused, and preferred just utilizing the bullet point to distinguish between read vs. not read notifications.

Another key finding from the second round of interviewing users was the usage of colour. When I tested users for the second time, dark mode for iOS just came out. Users brought up utilizing colours I used initially instead for dark mode and suggested using a lighter hue for day mode. I found that interesting. It goes to show that new features can impact users’ experience. Consistently testing and retesting users can lead to new findings.

Future Opportunities

As this project evolves there will be more room to add more features and enhance this app for users. The next steps would include further testing and re-iteration, exploring the insights that didn’t make the initial MVP, expansion and prototyping of additional screens, and further research and analysis for possible new features.