Tada
Project type
UX Case Study
Date
Discover 'Tada', an event planning tool designed to streamline and elevate event organization. This case study highlights the creation of a user-friendly platform that simplifies task management, enhances collaboration, and ensures smooth event execution from start to finish.
May 2024
Tools
Figma, FigJam, Photoshop, Zoom
Tada
A smart event planning tool that simplifies task management and keeps you on track.
Project Background
Despite technological advancements and convenience tools, event planning remains a complex and stressful task, with planners handling scheduling, guest management, vendor outreach, and budgeting. There's a clear need for a simpler solution to ensure event success and relieve the burden on planners.
The Problem
Event planners often encounter challenges in coordinating and managing the various tasks throughout the event planning process, leading to miscommunications and sub-par event outcomes.
The Goal?
Our aim is to understand the challenges that event planners face while coordinating events so that we can create a user-centered planning tool that serves as a solution to the discovered challenges.
The Design Process
I utilize the design process to ensure a user-centered approach, guiding the journey from understanding user needs to creating effective solutions.
❤️
Empathize
✍🏼
Define
💡
Ideate
⚙️
Prototype
🚀
Test
01/ EMPATHIZE
Understanding The Problem
Before jumping into design, I aimed to understand the challenges event planners face. To do this, I conducted user interviews with a diverse group of planners with varying levels of expertise and technological experience. This primary research, combined with a market trend analysis, helped in understanding the overall problem.
Research Findings
01
Setting Boundaries Is a Problem
This insight suggests that event planners often face difficulties in maintaining clear communication and setting boundaries. This could lead to misunderstandings, conflicts, or inefficiencies in the planning process.
02
Desire For Better Tech & Tools
Event planners feel that the current technology and tools available for event planning are insufficient. They express a need for more advanced, user-friendly, and efficient tools to streamline their workflow and improve productivity.
03
Delegating Tasks Is Overwhelming
Many event planners find it challenging to delegate tasks effectively. This may be due to a desire to maintain control over every aspect of the event, a lack of trust in others' abilities, or difficulty in prioritizing tasks for delegation.
04
Staying Organized Is A Difficult Task
Event planners frequently encounter difficulties in staying organized throughout the planning process. This could include managing timelines, budgets, vendor contracts, guest lists, and other logistical details, leading to stress and potential errors.
05
Strong Desire To Be In Control
This insight reflects the tendency of event planners to prefer being in control of every aspect of the planning process. While this desire for control may stem from a commitment to delivering high-quality events, it can also lead to micromanagement, burnout, and difficulties in delegating tasks effectively.
Market Analysis
Use digital planning tools
Report an issue with their current planning tool
Of planning tools offer a mobile app
Source: American Express Global Business Travel, 2024 Global Meetings and Events Forecast
Affinity Mapping
To uncover and organize key insights from my research into the challenges faced by event planners, I conducted an affinity mapping exercise. This process involved grouping related observations and comments to identify patterns and themes that inform the user experience.
The affinity map revealed several recurring themes: challenges in staying organized, difficulties in delegating tasks, and maintaining healthy communication boundaries to reduce stress.
Identified User Peronas
Meet Isabella! A dynamic professional, strives for consistent excellence, yet grapples with defining professional boundaries and managing communication effectively.
Meet Sam! Passionate and creative, strives to improve efficiency while planning, yet he faces challenges in maintaining focus, organization, and task delegation.
02/ DEFINE
Identifying The Problem
In this step, I took the insights I've gathered from empathizing with users and use them to define the problem. This involves framing the problem in a way that will guide my design process.
Current Experience
High-Stress Planning Environment
The overall experience as a planner is extremely stressful, with high pressure to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Balancing Creativity and Control
Planners enjoy the creative outlet their work provides, while expressing a consistent need to maintain control over their projects.
Navigating Multifaceted Platforms
Event planners frequently navigate between various files and folders, using multiple platforms to manage their tasks and resources effectively.
Desired Improvements
Better Team Collaboration
Enhance team communication and coordination, and access to a network of reliable and skilled event staff.
Integrative Technology
There is a need for resources to facilitate effective task delegation.
Client Management Solutions
Manage client expectations and allow for better handling of client demands and feedback.
Pain Points
Struggling to Stay Organized
Staying organized proves challenging as planners juggle multiple tasks and resources for various events concurrently.
Communication Boundaries
Constant communication blurs professional and personal boundaries, adding stress, inefficiencies and confusion.
Delegating Tasks
Managing task delegation, including monitoring tasks and ensuring completion while maintaining control without stress, is a significant pain point.
Essential Needs
Comprehensive Organizational Tools
Event planners desire a unified platform to streamline tasks, resources, budgets, and communication.
Improved Delegation Processes
There is a need for resources to facilitate effective task delegation.
Clear Communication Protocols
Planners seek tools to manage and filter communications effectively, establishing clear boundaries for interactions.
03/ IDEATE
Exploring Creative Solutions
In the ideate step, I focus on generating a wide array of creative solutions to address the user's needs. This involves brainstorming feature sets, sketching task flows, and exploring various user flows that can effectively solve the defined problem.
Feature Set
📣
Event Dashboard
A display of upcoming events and associated tasks, offering easy access to task management and filtering for efficient event organization.
🖇️
Task Management
Efficiently create, assign, and track event planning tasks, including setting deadlines, priorities, and receiving timely alerts for task progress.
🚦
Setting Boundaries
Customized communication settings for individual accounts by controlling notifications and setting boundaries by specifying preferred availability.
Delegate a Task
When users want to delegate a task, they start by going to the homepage and selecting "Task Management." From there, they choose the task, assign team members, and confirm by clicking the check button. Notifications are then sent to the assigned team members for clear communication and accountability.
Setting Communication Preferences
When users want to adjust how they receive communications, they start by navigating to the homepage and selecting "Account." From there, they can easily find "Communication Preferences" to tailor settings according to their needs. Once adjustments are made, users simply save their changes to update their preferences instantly.
Marking a Task as Complete
When users want to mark a task as complete, they can do so in two ways. They can go to the homepage, select "Task Management," find the task, and check its box. Alternatively, within a specific event, they navigate to "Events," select the event, go to its dashboard, find the task under "Tasks," and mark it complete by checking the box. This keeps all tasks organized and updated as they move forward.
04/ PROTOTYPE
Design Thinking in Practice
Through iterative design processes, encompassing low and mid-fidelity wireframes, branding & components, and high-fidelity prototyping, we transform insights gathered from user research into tangible prototypes. This iterative approach allows us to refine and validate our ideas, ensuring they effectively meet user needs and expectations
Low-Fidelity Wireframes
In these low-fidelity wireframes, I adopted a mobile-first approach to ensure a seamless user experience on smaller screens before transitioning to desktop layouts. The wireframes highlight key interfaces, including task management dashboards, event pages, and user account settings, each designed to facilitate intuitive navigation and efficient task completion.
Home
Event Modal
Task Dashboard
Event Dashboard
Profile
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes
These mid-fidelity wireframes build upon the initial mobile-first designs, translating them into more detailed desktop layouts. Each layout has been refined to enhance user interactions and improve the overall usability of the platform. These wireframes provide a clearer vision of how users will navigate and engage with the system, setting the stage for high-fidelity prototyping and final design.
Task Dashboard
Event Dashboard
Profile
Crafting Visual Identity
Color Palette
Wanting to create a welcoming, inviting, and friendly atmosphere: purple suggests creativity and refinement, light purple provides a gentle and calming contrast, turquoise adds a fresh and inviting vibe, and magenta brings a sense of fun and excitement, mirroring the desired outcomes of successful event planning.
Typography
Baloo was chosen as the brand font for its playful and approachable design, which makes the technology feel less intimidating and adds to the welcoming and friendly atmosphere of the application. Its rounded, bold characters convey a sense of fun and excitement, aligning with the vibrant and engaging nature of event planning
Iconography
The graphic elements were selected to maintain a friendly and inviting user experience. This design approach fosters a playful and enjoyable atmosphere that complements the vibrant colors and chosen typography, tying all the branding aspects together into a cohesive and harmonious whole.
Logo
The logo was designed to encapsulate the essence of the brand. Playful and approachable, the star adds a touch of magic and celebration, highlighting the company’s mission to create memorable and outstanding events.
Hi-Fidelity Wireframes
Building upon the lower fidelity wireframes, these high-fidelity prototypes now embody the full spectrum of our visual identity. Every detail, from branding elements to typography and color palette, has been meticulously integrated to forge a cohesive and engaging user experience. These wireframes not only showcase refined interactions but also exemplify how our design principles come to life on screen.
05/ TESTING
Enhancing UX Through Iterative Testing
In the journey to perfect our design, usability testing plays a crucial role. By gathering diverse participant profiles and soliciting insightful feedback, we refine our prototypes to ensure they resonate seamlessly with user expectations. Insights gained through rigorous testing guide enhancements that prioritize user-centricity. This iterative phase fosters continuous improvement, ensuring the final product exceeds user satisfaction.
Refining The User Experience
Improved Time Selection Feedback
Users will now experience a hover interaction that lightly highlights the selected time, enhancing clarity during the scheduling process.
Enhanced Visibility and Interaction
The edit task button has been relocated above the modal, increased in size, and now features a hover interaction to ensure users recognize its interactivity clearly.
Functional Prototype Interactions
Prototypes now feature enhanced click interactions, ensuring seamless functionality and user engagement during testing and development phases.
Streamlined Assignee Selection
Upon selecting an assignee, the form dynamically displays the name(s) of the chosen individual(s), improving user feedback and task assignment clarity.
Convenient Task and Event Creation
A new ‘+’ button on the homepage allows users to create tasks and events directly from the main interface, simplifying the process for the user.
Task Dashboard Enhancements
Users can now associate tasks with specific events using a dropdown form, facilitating better organization and task context within the platform.
🕝
👥
🎨
📋
👓
💻
Time Selection Feedback
To address users' lack of confidence in selecting the desired time, a hover interaction was added. This enhancement lightly highlights the time being hovered over, providing immediate visual feedback and ensuring users feel more assured in their selection.
Event Association Dropdown
To address the problem of users not having an option to select an event to associate with a task, a dropdown form was added to the modal. This allows users to easily select an event to link with their task.
Task Completion Status Update
To resolve the issue where some users were unsure if a task was successfully marked as complete, a solution was implemented where selecting the radio button updates the task's status on the right to "Completed."
Edit Task Button Visibility
To address users' confusion in locating the edit task button, which was previously blending into the background in the top right corner of the task/event modal, the button has been moved above the modal for better visibility. Its size has been slightly increased, and a hover interaction has been added to ensure users are confident that the button is interactive.
Next Steps
The next steps involve introducing Zeplin as the primary design handoff tool. This will foster collaborative and initiating the organization of items and screens into logical groups.
Further
Testing
Gather more feedback through testing, explore new features to meet event planners' needs, and improving the product based on insights gathered.
Long-Term
Vision
Make the product more robust, adding a communication hub, integrating calendar functionality, include budgeting, guest list management, and vendor coordination.
Lessons Learned
🤝🏼
Trust the Process
The UX design process taught me the importance of patience and fully immersing myself in each stage, rather than thinking too far ahead.
🛑
Embracing Failure
Embrace failure as a learning opportunity, recognizing that each setback provides valuable insights and growth.
👥
Value of Perspectives
Having a group of peers and designers to offer perspectives and provide insights, is so important, as I may have overlooked some aspects.
