Let's Dutch
Redesigning an event crowdfunding experience with the goal of increasing conversions
BACKGROUND
Let’s Dutch is an experience-booking service where members can create and book events in the hopes that others will join in and share the cost. As a result, members are able to save money on novel experiences while meeting other like-minded individuals.
My Role
User Researcher, UX Designer, Usability Tester, Project Manager
Tools
Sketch, Optimal Workshop, Keynote, OmniGraffle, InVision
Timeline
3 weeks
CHALLENGE
Let's Dutch was concerned that the company's unfamiliar "crowdfunding" concept was leading to a high bounce rate. They asked us to redesign their website to make it more compelling and trustworthy with the goal of increasing conversions.
Opportunity
In this three week sprint, I worked with two fellow designers to analyze the current website, interview current and potential users, and design a hi-fidelity prototype for the new desktop site.
In our approach, we wanted to understand where users might be abandoning the site and what their decision making process looked like when they browsed events.
Solution
Our redesigned website provides:
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Improved event descriptions
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Visible refund/cancellation policies
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Clear statement of Let's Dutch's mission
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Subcategories for global navigation menu
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Contextual navigation to facilitate event browsing
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Simplified home page with clear CTAs
problem DISCOVERY
In stakeholder interviews, we learned that Let's Dutch users found the site by browsing events on Meetup, Reddit, and Eventbrite. We also learned that many users were reaching the event pages, then abandoning the site. Our client hypothesized that users were unaware of how the site really worked due to its unique concept and were unclear on how money changed hands between the attendee, host, and Let's Dutch. The client also wanted to explore how the site could be made more compelling and incentivizing to users.
RESEARCH
During this phase, we used the following methods to validate our problem assumptions:
Competitive Analysis
Heuristic Evaluation
User Interviews
Card Sorting
Primary Persona
User Journey Map
Problem Definition
Competitive Analysis
We conducted an in-depth features analysis of Let's Dutch's main competitors: Airbnb, Eventbrite, and Meetup. We analyzed the main functions of most event-booking sites, which included an event preview, event detail page, host's profile, sort, filter and a messaging platform.
Insights
Our analysis showed that for the most part, Let's Dutch had most essential components that event-booking sites have. However, we decided to look closely at the event preview box components, as this was the first opportunity users would get to learn about the event before clicking into the event page.
Heuristic Evaluation
Next, we completed a heuristic evaluation of Let's Dutch to understand the site's problems from an information architecture perspective.
We found there to be the biggest opportunities in terms of:
User Interviews
We sent out a screener survey early on in our research process to recruit participants for user interviews. The screener was sent to existing users of Let's Dutch - we were interested in hearing about their experiences using the site and what led them to become a member. Among 22 responses, we interviewed 7 users.
We then conducted expectation tests with 5 people who had never used Let's Dutch before. We wanted to see what they clicked on, what they thought was the site's purpose, and whether or not they felt compelled to make a booking.
Only 2 out of the 5 new users seemed compelled to make a booking.
Insights
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Users were unclear about the site’s purpose.
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“This is a site to look for travel and vacation fun.” — Lawrence, 28 (site visitor)
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Users were using the search bar and ignoring the site’s categories.
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“I didn’t expect to find whiskey tasting under Excursions.” — Rodnelle, 36 (site visitor)
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The home page was lengthy and contained too much information.
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“This is too long, I don’t really want to read it.” — Geoff, 28 (site visitor)
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The event descriptions were lacking and unclear.
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“Nothing about what I know about this event so far makes me want to book yet.” — Geoff, 28
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Current users were not compelled to return to the site.
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“I love the company, but they don’t really do much to bring me back in.” — Jen (Let’s Dutch user)
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Card Sorting
When having our new site visitors complete the task of locating an event, we noticed that they had trouble using the site's categories and resorted to using the search bar. As we knew our users wanted to be able to browse for events, we wanted to make the categories as informative and clear as possible.
We conducted an open card sorting exercise with a selection of 40 events on Let's Dutch to understand how our users would categorize them.
Current navigation bar:
Our navigation bar:
Insights
We learned that users broke down some of the broader categories like "Entertainment", "Excursions", and "Miscellaneous".
We also took into consideration that as the site grows and more events are added, the navigation will need to be able to house a greater variety of events and experiences. To accommodate this, we created sub-categories for each main event category, as shown in the site map below.
Click to expand:
Primary Persona
We created a primary persona that represented the needs of both current and new users.
User Journey Map
We then created Gillian's journey map.
In this use case, Gillian is planning a night out with her new coworkers to see Mean Girls on Broadway. A quick Google search has shown her that ticket prices are high at her usual ticket selling sites. A friend on Facebook recommends Let's Dutch, where she thankfully sees tickets are much cheaper for her group of 4.
Click to expand:
Problem Definition
With Gillian's needs and pain points in mind, our design would ultimately address the following user goal:
Gillian has just moved to NYC and is looking for inexpensive ways to explore her new city. She would also like to make new friends with similar interests.
How can we provide Gillian with a way to explore NYC without overspending while also meeting new people?
IDEATION
We conducted a session of design studio to further distill our user insights and prioritize features for our MVP.
Using the MoSCoW method, we determined our MVP would contain the features highlighted below:
Design Solutions
Keeping our research insights at the forefront, we implemented our design solutions:
Current Home Page
New users were not all clear on the site's purpose when glancing at the home page.
Redesigned Home Page
By moving the CTAs above the fold, users knew the site's purpose right away.
Current Search Results Page
Users did not find events through the global navigation, and some thought the category names were confusing.
Redesigned Search Results Page
Information architecture was updated and sub-categories were added to better sort events. We also added "New" and "Popular" categories to engage users.
Current Home Page
Users felt that the home page contained some unnecessary information that did not clarify the site's main purpose.
Redesigned Home Page
Home page is more condensed and only has the most necessary and compelling components.
Current Event Page
Users were apprehensive to book because the event descriptions weren't the most informative.
Redesigned Event Page
The way hosts create events was changed by adding required fields in order to make descriptions more robust. Cancellation policies were also moved to the sidebar to be more prominent.
Current Search Results Page
Beyond scrolling for events, the site didn't offer many engaging ways to browse events by interest.
Redesigned Search Results Page
We added "New", "Popular" and "People Also Booked" sections to search results pages.
User Flows
Since we had added new categories to help users browse for and find specific events, the new user flow would look a little different from the current flow. Through the use of contextual navigation, users would also be able to find additional events under "New", "Popular" and "People Also Booked".
Below is a main user flow for finding a specific event.
Task: Find an event for Mean Girls on Broadway.
Usability Testing
We conducted two rounds of testing on our mid-fidelity and hi-fidelity wireframes.
During testing, we asked our users to find the Mean Girls event on August 14th. We then asked what they felt would happen if the event was canceled or underfilled. We also asked them for their general feedback on the events detail page. This is what we learned:
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They were still unable to find the event cancellation policies
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They did not know how to book for multiple tickets, an issue we weren't expecting
Next Steps
Let's Dutch is currently working on implementing our designs and we will be continuing to work with them to build out additional pages.
Our immediate next steps will be to:
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Test out the host side of the event creation process, since we added required fields for filling out event descriptions
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Test animations on the home page
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My teammate experimented with animating some of the home page iconography using Flinto in order to display additional information without forcing users to click "Learn More". Instead, clicking each icon would flip it to reveal information. Pretty cool! See below for a demo.
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Final Thoughts
I found this project to be a great learning experience in that we were challenged to find a way to convert users to an unfamiliar business model and build trust through design.