This week’s project focused on creating micro-interactions into micro-sites and responsive abilities. In casual terms, we needed to create both a web page and app that would garner the same user experience. Decidedly, we went with a post-quarantine festival experience because of current events (just a global pandemic, no biggy).
We wanted people who felt cooped up during quarantine to be given a space where they could freely socialize again and have an opportunity to assimilate back into that normal lifestyle they’re craving.
During our secondary research, we found out that over 83 billion people had to rearrange their plans during COVID, people lost over $9 billion in estimated revenue, and outside events took the biggest hit. We then arranged our interview questions to encompass: events people missed, what they learned during quarantine, what some of their goals are post-COVID, what they want events to have post-COVID, and how likely they would be to even attend events post-COVID.
“I wonder if in a post-Covid19 world, if we would be so bold to embrace the arms of a stranger and sway together, sharing our breath by singing in unison — the close moments when New York’s tapestry of different cultures, languages and skin tones are molded into a special kinship. I sure hope so.”
If COVID was over for one weekend, people wanted to go to music festivals, parties, and travel. Hell, someone said they just wanted to “date 52 men”. I’m not entirely sure if COVID was the only thing to watch out for here…
After 105 survey responses, we pivoted from our initial concepts of creating a graduation theme festival for students who missed their graduation to an inclusive social festival where friends can socialize in groups or meet up with other people with the same interest. Our main takeaway being:
People didn’t feel the need to relive past experiences when they have already
moved on to the next chapter of their life.
The competitive feature comparison chart allows us to notice the similarities and differences
between the apps that our user uses and how to maximize those features for our own app.
Using theme and convenience as our benchmark we can find opportunities to
develop our blue ocean - venturing into new waters with little to no competition
We found our blue ocean: COVID awareness, intramural sports, and age-specific themes/events where everyone would be able to feel included. Taking to our Value Proposition Canvas where we highlighted our user’s main pains, gains, and jobs: being in crowds, worried about restrictions, tired of being alone, reminiscing over events they missed, and comfortability of socializing again.
*Revisit old hobbies that I never had time for
*Would go out for the weekend: live bands, rooftops
*Not being able to go anywhere with friends
*Having to socialize with others make me anxious
*Travel somewhere, go on a trip.
*Not worry about masks
*Hopes society takes COVID practices and uses them to be safer and clean
Pains
*Getting sick
*Tired of being alone
*Socially adapting
*Fear of large crowds
Gains
*Social comfortability
*Sense of normalcy
*Lower anxiety & stress
*Meet new people
*Share new hobbies
Customer Jobs
*Meet new people
*Partake in society
*Reduce stress
*Celebrate life events
*Gain new interests
So *drumroll* meet Friendly Francey,
A 27-year-old working in production at [insert made-up production company in Chicago]
*the crowd goes wild*
Her main goals are to meet new people, reminisce on past events, hang out with friends, and network with new ones. She needs to socialize post-COVID responsibly whether it's traveling or going to a festival. Francey’s day consists of browsing Instagram, finding out about the festival, booking tickets with friends, waiting in line for her wristband, socializing with her friends, getting lost, leaving the venue after a weekend of highs, and then getting post-festival blues.
How might we provide a space for friends to reconnect after covid?
How might we make users feel comfortable socially readapting to a post-COVID world?
How might we make our ambivert users feel safe while researching, attending, and after leaving?
So our goal was to access and situate the pain points in already existing festivals and create products and services that would not only alleviate those pains but boost our blue ocean.
Through user testing with our mood board and style tile we were able to hit those emotions spot on, we did do some pivoting with the text and some of the colors and images that created any conflicting emotion. Then we started our atomic design with some icon atoms, button style molecules, certain text-heavy organisms, and complete page templates.
A multi-themed festival addressing the users’ COVID-related concerns and preferences, while providing an engaging event for users who want to socialize in a group setting. — Together Again
We did some visual benchmarking with our Visual Competitive Analysis: Lightning in a Bottle and SXSW keeping in mind our brand attributes: engaging, inclusive, innovative, safe, and spirited with some more guidance from Dave Jobs (Dave).
We wanted the users to feel connected, relaxed, safe, warm, and included.
So our MOSCOW chart contained social distanced tailgating sections, COVID safety, distinguished sections, vaccination wristbands, open-mic experience, range of environments, freedom of engagement, and more.
A relook into our Value Proposition Canvas but for the company side our gain creators, pain relievers, and product and services is a mobile application where users would be able to locate their friends and booths (speakers, artists, and games) while adhering to vaccination/COVID policies.
With our Lo-Fi usability testing doing horrible with a 67% success rate and 47.5% mis-click rate, we took the comments: “not clear enough”, “I'm not sure where to click”, “the buttons are too small”, seriously and went on to a design a more concrete Mid-Fi and got a 100% success rate, but we still wanted to minimize the time on task and mis-click rates.
Check the Interactions here:
*Continue iterations as new features are rolled out. Look for feedback and make adjustments accordingly.
*Add information to site as COVID situation is updated
*Checking our success and failure rates through:
*Low Bounce Rate
*High Completion Rate
*High Ticket Reservations
*Low Misclick Rate
People fear being reintroduced into society, Safety measures are still desired (face masks, hand sanitizer, cleaning), People miss the energy of going out but want to still have social distancing in place, and People prefer going out with a small group of close friends and family
