Party Planner

Party Delights Party Planner

by Phil Burling

Why?• Costs of throwing parties always rising (e.g. over

£500 for children party)

• More reason for customers to share costs than ever but hard to organise.

• 47% consumers buy from discount stores

• 41% from department stores

• Customers want advice!

vs. the world

• Collection only in Manchester

• Confusing Navigation

• Inadequate sorting/filtering

• No recommendations / Consumer history

• Comparative analysis for similar companies and those with features we could use

Users prefer other options for party supplies because…

• Amazon - “Trusted”, “one-stop-shop”

• Sainsbury’s - “Convenience”

• Party Supplies (Clapham Junction) - Physical ability to browse. Many pickup locations. Better navigation. Customer service

• Poundland - Guaranteed low budget supplies.

Areas for Growth

• Expand to include hired services

• Sell food, alcohol

• eCard/postal delivery

• Planning events

• Crowdfunding

Good Planning Services

• Design My Night

• The Knot

• Collection 26

• Paperless Post

User Behaviours• Previous research identified three

main types of user or ‘persona’

• I interviewed 4 different users similar to Gale on their usual process for planning parties.

• This revealed insights into how they decide to…

1. Choose a party theme

2. Split costs with other attendants

3. Modified their party requirements/supplies as more guests confirmed attendance

≤≥,.Decide to split costs

Am I splitting the cost of

everything?

(a) Make a separate list of things to split on

Remove items I’m unwilling to personally pay for

Do I know the total costs?

Is everything covered by the kitty

amount?

(c) Can everyone afford

it?

Find out what guests are willing to contribute

(b) Am I splitting the cost of

everything?

Buy all items

No

Yes

Say how much it will be for each person (on Facebook

event or otherwise)Add more of my own

money to the kitty No

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

NoAdd up to find out

totalGather costs of all items

Entry points:ab Set up new Facebook event Invite guests

Post estimated cost for group and ask for

contributions on event or message privately

Contact remaining users by sms / whatsapp / phone call

Are all users on Facebook?

Note down lowest contribution

Find out how much people can afford and who can pay

Exit point:c

Divide left-over cash by number of contributors to

kitty

Is there any money left over from the

kitty amount?

Do I need the money in advance?No

Collect money that I can from each contributor - Ask for bank transfer or collect

in person

Give an equal share of the kitty to each contributor

(using convenient method)End

Start a list of contributors and what they offered

Add to contributors list

Yes

Does anyone owe me money?

Divide value of original kitty by number of contributors

Collect unpaid shares of kitty for guests that haven’t

paid

Multiply lowest contribution by contributors to get total

kitty budget

Yes

No

Yes

No

No

Yes

For example…

Other findings

• My initial user research also identified that travel-time would have been useful for sourcing an appropriate venue for all the guests coming as well as sorting out who would need to stay and potentially booking accommodation

• Different users preferred different ways of splitting costs (before vs after, all vs some)

Fixing the Navigation

• Performed a 100 card sort to help redefine the categories of existing products

• Help users find themes and related products

• Broke down into sections that might require different kinds of product pages or considerations.

Splitting Costs

• Initially I tried to create something too powerful

• Some users had difficulty interpreting it

• I added more explanation, simplified the interface

Prototype

http://invis.io/TY2MBQBF2

Future Steps• Sprint 1 - More usability testing to refine the current features

• Sprint 2 - Design the party gallery

• Sprint 3- Add designs for eCards and physical card invitations

• Sprint 3 - Design specialised product pages for services and other categories on the site

• Amazon pick-up services.

• Add travel/accomodation features for the guests and to help the host to work out an appropriate venue.