DreamTeam | UX Project
A wedding planner app that helps couples find and manage suppliers for their special day, effortlessly.
DreamTeam simplifies planning the big day together. It allows couples to co-pilot market research, reach out to vendors and keep track of expenses and budgets.
The DreamTeam app was created as part of my graduation project while studying UX at Netcraft Academy.
Overview
The Problem
When couples start planning their wedding, they encounter an all too familiar informational gap: with many suppliers, there's no pricing transparency, availability status or honest, detailed reviews.
The result: Many couples find the planning part overly complex and filled with uncertainty, beyond what it should be. They waste precious time, money and even postpone important personal projects just to organize this one evening.
Market Research
As my first step, I made a competitive research in order to get a better understanding of the product's necessity. While there aren't any online direct competitors, there are a few indirect products. One example is bridal Facebook groups, e.g. 'My day' and 'Urban Brides', which are run by commercial wedding blogs. Another type is commercial websites, such as 'Mitchatnim', which publishes sponsored ads of different wedding vendors.
The advantage of these FB groups is their big community of supportive brides-to-be, where the future brides consult each other for advice and share their insights regarding the planning process. The wedding blogs and commercial websites stand out for their inspirational wedding content. However, these platforms share a common disadvantage: Sharing important information - such as prices and authentic reviews - is banned. Our users can't get the full picture.
USER RESEARCH
User survey
In order to test my assumptions and to better understand the users' needs and pain points, I ran an online survey, comprised of 30 questions which spanned over different aspects of the wedding planning process. The questions were made to uncover and address the struggles that couples may face during the planning stage. The survey was filled by 138 potential users, young couples, ages 26-33, who planned their wedding in the last 4 years.
Survey Statistics
71%
agreed that contacting vendors demanded too much time & energy
68%
scheduled and met three or more vendors who turned out to be irrelevant
84%
said the tasks distribution was unequal, with the bride doing most of the planning
78%
reported having to rearrange an already busy routine during the planning phase
UX interviews
To gather further insights and achieve a better understanding of topic's problems, I interviewed 6 participants out of the total 138. In this interview, I aimed to better define the heart of these problems, which real users encounter, in order to test if there were other variables I had overlooked.
Question Examples:
1. Can you please share your wedding planning experience? How would you describe it?
2. What were the main challenges you and your partner dealt with during this time?
3. How did you feel about these challenges?
4. How did you overcome these challenges?
Personas
Based on my user research, I defined three personas with different goals and pain points, which I referred to throughout the whole design process. ​
1
Yuval, 30
The busy bride
My schedule was already full and it feels like I need to give up important things and part of myself, just so I could organize this wedding, with virtually no help.
Demographics
Age:
Location:
Job:
Education:
30
Ramat Gan
Accountant
BA in Economics
Tech
Internet:
Social media:
Online shopping:
Early adopter:
Bio
Goals
Yuval is a talented young woman, who recently began a new position at a big firm and wants to make her way to the top. She's excited to get married and knew the planning would be demanding, but ever since the engagement, she discovered it takes too much time, while her fiance keeps his normal routine.
-
Find vendors that suit us, as fast as possible
-
Equal planning distribution between my partner and I
-
Make progress in my personal growth during the planning stage
Pain points
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Wasting time on irrelevant vendors
-
The bride alone is exposed to vendors' details in dedicated FB groups
-
Lack of communication about the planning with the fiance
Pain points
Goals
Wasting time contacting and meeting irrelevant vendors
Save Money
Save Time
Better Match
Work as a Team
An unequal job distribution of wedding planning, when the bride often does most of the work
Overpaying, due to lack of pricing transparency
HOW DOES IT WORK?
1
Save time
During registration, the users are requested to provide two crucial details: their wedding date and the chosen venue. The vendors' pool will be filtered and they'll be exposed only to relevant ones, that are available for their wedding date & location.
In addition, the couples can share the burden and work together, as well as book meetings, sign contracts and pay the advances remotely.
The couples get all the essential info in order to make a conscious decision, without the need to contact the vendors directly, although it's possible, if they want to.
2
Save money
The couples can stick to their budget by tracking expenses and getting exposed to the prices of all the relevant vendors, including the latest market newcomers. With full price range transparency, the couples discover where they can save the most.
3
Better match
Users get to pick from the available suppliers, those who fit their budget and personal taste. Authentic reviews are published by verified users, who have already experienced the vendor's service, to better familiarize with each vendor. For further exploration, users can check the supplier's portfolio in order to gain additional impression of them.
4
Work as a team
Allow couples to share the burden of planning evenly and work together as a team. By giving their significant other access to the app, the couples can equally share the work during the organization period.
Through the app, users get notifications from vendors, as well as their partner's activities, for better transparency and collaboration.
