VENUE is an MVP social product on a mobile app platform that helps people discover and organize events both online and onsite.
Product: Venue event booking app
Role: Product Designer (User Research, UI Design)
Process: Design Thinking, Lean UX
Duration: 3 weeks
Research Tools: Competitor Analysis, User Flows
Design Tools: Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, Miro
OVERVIEW
This case study explores how the Gamification technique can increase & sustain engagement and encourage event attendance.
The business team had identified a discrepancy between the number of people who sign up for an event and the number of people who attend. On average, 20% of people who say they’re going to an event end up actually attending.
The challenge was to design new features into the existing product to help bridge this gap and increase the conversion of accepted invites to event attendees.
COMPETITORS
Close examination of the market and investigation of the main competitors, allowed for weaknesses in the main user flows to become apparent, which led to narrowing in on the actual problem that was causing event no-shows.
OBSERVATION
Scattered information architecture across all 3 apps, making it difficult for the user to find the info they need.
The event-creating features are minimal and do not allow the organizer to create an engagement and spark interest for the event goer.
We recruited 5 event-goers that fit into the app's target demographics which are mostly tech-savvy millennials and Gen Z who use social online platforms to book events. The main pain point turned out to be needing a good reason to attend an event as well as simply forgetting to attend!
I forgot about an event because I never got a reminder, or I booked in advance. Maybe if I am invited for a discussion prior to the event it could help me be more engaged and remember to attend.
__Kaiyu
If I pay for an event I make sure I don’t forget to go. I never got a reminder notification so I forget sometimes.
__Tyler
In-depth field research helped in narrowing down
the demographics of the target users, which lead us to our persona.
How might we motivate our event-goers to actually show up
for the events, they signed up for?
But also...
How might we get event-goers to sign up for an event
in the first place?
There is two sides to this..
Social Event Apps like Venue and their competitors tend to have two types of actors. One is the Event Organizer who creates events on the app, the other is the Event Goer who searches and RSVPs to events.
INSIGHT
The balance between Option and Challenge.
The solution is to exert simple game mechanics into the non-game environment such as the simple task of signing up for an event. The incentive to attend naturally gets created as the event goer becomes more engaged with the venue by giving them options and challenges. The Event Organizer creates the venue, so gamification features need to be added to the user flow: “Create an Event”
I sketch out the ‘Create an Event’ screen user flow and low fi screens with interactivity features as the core solution to the identified event-goer pain points.
Engagement
Engaging the event Goer by
asking them questions
pertaining to the upcoming
event gives a sense of
contribution and helps to
maintain interest in the venue.
Test out the Interactivity Features
To validate the gamification hypothesis, I tested out the low fi screens on 5 people that fit the target demographic of this app. There was positive feedback on the interactivity features added to the existing product. However, the ‘Creating a Poll’ feature needed to be simplified to include one type of poll, in addition, this was the feature the participants responded to as being more effective.
Streamlined
Venue as an MVP product still has the potential to grow and become more customized to individual preferences both from the side of the Event Goer as well as the Event Planner.
THE BRAND
The Brand Personality for VENUE is a trusted friend that cares about bringing people together through meaningful connections.
Attributes: Familiar, Personable, Optimistic.
THE MAIN TAKEAWAY
It all came down to Interactivity
The core feature that can help to bridge the gap between event sign-up and attendance is the interactivity option in creating the event screen that gamifies the overall experience of the event booking.
Creating an engagement to the venue prior to the actual event date will greatly help in solving the issue of forgetting about the event and maintaining the interest of the attendee.
Next Steps: