event RSVP

Solution

eventRSVP is an app that helps the grooms easily create and maintain the list of guest and their preferences regarding the menu type, accommodation, etc, by allowing the guests to send their responses through the app.

Desk Research

Nowadays, for a long time already, the vast majority of the grooms start with preparing the guest list when organizing their wedding. They either use pen and paper or many of them use Excel like tools in order to build their list. Then, at a later point, after the location and date of the event is settled, they start handing or sending out the invitation. Then, after the confirmation deadline has been reached, they begin reaching to the people who haven't yet confirmed their presence. At this step, most of the time they also ask the guests some questions regarding their preferences regarding menu, accommodation, etc. A relatively final step is arranging the guests at tables.

Qualitative Research

I conducted user interviews, each lasting approximately 30 minutes. This way I was trying to get a better understanding about the steps the grooms follow in their process of organising their wedding. One of the main focuses within the interviews was to get a clear image on where the steps dealing with creating the guests list and collecting the responses are located within the whole process of organizing the wedding event. Then I tried to get a detailed understanding about the way the grooms structure and maintain their guest list.

Questions:

• Could you please share your impression you were left with in the process of organizing your wedding? How would you describe your experience?

• Please tell me about the steps you went through in the whole wedding organization process.

• How did you split the tasks within the couple?

• Which tools did you use for building the guest list?

• Please detail the steps regarding building up the list of guest.

• Which do you remember as being the structure of the list?

• Which were the most difficult and time-consuming task within the whole process

Answers:

• "I consider that the most difficult steps in the whole organization process were collecting the responses from the guest and the distribution of the wedding guests at tables" 

• "I used pen and paper, it was a very bad idea"

• "It was very annoying to having to reach out to so many of the guests in order to collect responses. Just a few reached out to us by themselves"

• "It was stressful to constantly having to interrupt work in order to collect responses"

User Persona & Empathy map

Having had my own wedding recently and also having joined to some recent weddings of close friends recently, but first of all having conducted the interviews, I was able to distinguish 2 personas who represent the grooms. The first one provided the most valuable information, a tech savvy and organized person . I also found it useful to have a 3rd user persona who represents the guests. In order to have a refined understanding about the 3 typologies and to be able to empathize with them, I complemented each persona with an empathy map.

Grooms using Excel

Grooms using pen & paper

Guests

Journey Map

In order to get a more accurate understanding about the steps within the process of managing the guest list and finally to notice the opportunities, I have built 2 journey maps. One corresponds to the tech savvy persona and the other one corresponds to the persona using pen and paper.

Pen & paper approach

Tech-savvy approach

Problem Statement

Now having received a clear understanding about the users, their behaviours and their needs, I was able to formulate some problem statements.

Alexandra is an accountant who needs to easily create a guest list because she wants to focus on other parts of the wedding.

Alexandra is an accountant who needs to easily check the status of each guest because she wants to be time efficient.

Alexandra needs to contact the guests if they don't respond in time, because she needs an answer for the presence, menus, accommodation, etc.

Mihai is a guest who wants to easily respond to the wedding invitation because he doesn't like to contact the grooms directly.

User Stories

In order to obtain a more accurate understanding about the functionalities the app should contain, I continued with formulating some user stories based on the upper problem statement.

• As a bride/ groom, I need to easily get notified about guests responses so that I don't have to constantly interrupt my work because of phone calls from the guests.

• As a bride/ groom, I need to have the responses easily collected so that I don't have to reach out to so many guests.

• As a groom, I need to easily upload my Excel guest list via the app, so that I don't have to add the already noted guest one by one in the app.

• As a groom, I need to add new guest to the list, so that I can have a complete guest list by the end.

• As a groom, I need to be able to edit the guest information, so that I have the correct and current situation about him.

• As a groom, I need to easily edit the guest status so that I don't have to waste time.

• As a groom, I need to easily see the status of all guests, so I can easily get an overview and so that I can quickly find the one I need.

• As a groom, I want to see the responses of each guest, so that I am aware of each ones individual situation.

• As a groom, I need to be notified about changed responses, so that I don't miss any updates.

• As a groom, I need to easily call or send mail to the user by accessing the contact info directly from the app, so that I can be efficient.

…

Goal Statement

I ended the research phase by formulating a clear goal statement.

Our eventRSVP app will allow users (wedding guests) to easily confirm their presence to the wedding and answer questions regarding preferences which will affect the grooms who have to manage invitations by allowing them (grooms) to easily keep track of the responses.