Bliss Case Study

Overview

The process of wedding planning can be exciting, but extremely costly and time consuming. Newly engaged couples are often juggling the financial burden of paying for existing debts, working full time jobs, and paying for future wedding vendors. Couples planning their own wedding want insight like a wedding planner provides, yet they also want to maintain financial independence and flexibility within their schedule to plan. Bliss simplifies vendor booking to help couples create the wedding of their dreams within the comfort of their budget and hectic schedules.

Problem

Couples planning a wedding can be quickly overwhelmed. DIY planners lose a lot of time, energy, and money when researching the endless selection of vendors and pricing.

Solution

Bliss looks to resolve the friction caused by wedding vendor research and booking. Save time and money by exploring the personalized results curated to each unique couple.

Research

Objectives

Determine what causes the most stress when planning a wedding.
Learn how couples prioritize their time, money, and wedding goals.
Identify common blockers in the planning process.
Understand how a planning service would fit into a couple’s daily lifestyle.

What services are already offered?

Surveying both direct and indirect competitors in the wedding planning market reviled a variety of free resources for DIY wedding planners. Majority of the features are offered à la carte so they lack direct and actionable guidance.

Table of four similar wedding planning companies to compare features to one another.

How are users trying to solve the issue now?

For the most accurate representation of the target audience I interviewed 5 current Tandem app users via Zoom. During these interviews we uncovered motivations, pain points, needs, and various insights.

Users need several different tools and resources when planning.

Users have no additional support on the wedding day.

Most users have no experience planning large scale events.

DIY planners wish they were more aware of their vendor options.

Overlay background image of sticky notes used during affinity mapping.

Define

Different needs reflected in different personas

Creating two personas helped me to address problems that each type of users experiences when wedding planning.

Alexandra Santos is a fictional persona created as a result from research to reflect a precise planner type.

Frankie Tannehill is a fictional persona created as a result from research to reflect a carefree planner.

Organizing content for quicker results

Results from the card sort revealed opportunities to clarify and organize vendor categories to better align with user mental models.

Preview of card sort exercise to determine user preferences when categorizing vendors.

Structuring the sitemap

Mapping a thorough sitemap established a reliable reference for all the pages and sections my designs would require.

Establishing information architecture with Bliss sitemap.

Preparing flows for usability testing

The task flow illustrated below outlined the screens needed to integrate the proposed solution.

User flow depicting searching for vendors and completing a contact form.

Illustration of Jess sitting with her knees hugged.

Product Goals

The primary product goal focus is centered on creating an online wedding vendor marketplace to help connect planners and vendors.

User Goal: Save money and maintain wedding budget while staying on schedule.
Business Goal: Improve planner experience with comprehensive yet simple booking experience.

Ideation

Start with a sketch

I used page details from my sitemap to curate layouts that could address the pain points inspired by the two personas.

Prioritizing mobile first designs

Most users tend to have mini wedding planning sessions opposed to sitting down for scheduled windows. Based on that feedback, I began my wireframes with a mobile-first approach to prioritize the development and medium most users would consume.

Establishing mobile design from low fidelity to first round of high fidelity mockups.

Capturing the excitement

Inspiration for the brand originated from the excitement of getting engaged. The sense of anticipation, excitement, and joyous celebration was motivating. I wanted to design an interface that helped users to retain that exhilaration and keep them on track to finish wedding planning.

Preparing to test

The hi-fi mobile designs were prioritized for testing since users preferred to plan in the gaps of their busy schedules. Any feedback I received on these designs and flows would also be taken into consideration for the desktop designs as well.

High fidelity mockups of all screens designed for Bliss.

Test

Put it to the test

Moderated tests were performed to assess and issues or opportunities in the design.

Users responded very positively to the designs presented in testing. Building off established mental models for sign up pages, quizzes, and contact forms really paid off. The user feedback implied a greater need for compartmentalization.

Task 1 results from Bliss usability testing.

Task 2 results from Bliss usability testing.

Task 3 results from Bliss usability testing.

Iterating based on user feedback

The revisions made to the final designs highlighted user concerns tailored to wedding planning.

Final high fidelity mockups after applying user feedback.

Introducing Bliss

Prototype preview of Bliss account creation, vendor quiz, and results.

Creating an account and completing the vendor quiz for results.

hi-fi Wireframes

hi-fi Prototype

Takeaways

Future updates to explore

Suggested features that require additional design iterations and workflows.

Add user created folders and categories for favorited vendors. Making this folder accessible from all screens either in the header or menu.
Create a function to allow users to vet or moderate the results. Some vendors may overuse key terms to show up in results. Users can have options to “hide”, “seen too often”, “inaccurate”, ore “unresponsive to inquiries” and Bliss will verify the feedback.

Illustration of Jess smiling with a hand in her pocket.

Lessons Learned

Explore research from different angles. Interviewing users at different stages of the problem encouraged a creative way to address the solution. Having empathy for users at the start, middle, and end of the issue can reveal insightful emotions and workarounds.
Incorporate questions and tests that produce more quantitative data. I gathered a lot of valuable qualitative feedback, but as I reflected on the results I wanted to substantiate my design decisions with statistics.

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