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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
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.
