Overview
Meetup.com is a social networking site that connects people within their local communities via shared interests and self-organized events in real life. I worked with Baladan Cho and Shelda Eason on a two-week class project where we were tasked with implementing a new feature on the existing Meetup site that would allow Meetup organizers to find venues for their events and enable venues to list their own spaces.
MEETUP:
Connecting
People with Spaces
My Role
Project Management
Competitive / Comparitive Research
User Research / User Testing
Persona Development
Prototyping
Identifying the Users
We kicked-off the project by asking ourselves what Meetup currently is, why it is used, by whom and when or in what situations. As a team, this helped us get on the same page about what we knew (or didn't know and needed to find out) about Meetup and its users.
Our discovery led us to focus on and define the needs of the two core users of this new feature — the Meetup Organizers and the Venue Owners.
Competitive Research
We looked at the competitive landscape by identifying who Meetup’s current competitors are, in addition to, who Meetup would potentially be competing against once the new feature was implemented.
We looked at Meetup's current competitors such as Eventbrite and Facebook’s Groups feature, both of which enable users to discover, create and promote their own local events. In terms of potential direct competitors, we identified venue booking sites like Venuebook and EventUp, as well as indirect competitors such as The Hitch (wedding venues), Yelp (local business search/reviews) and Airbnb (vacation rentals).
Feature Comparison
A comparative feature analysis was performed in order to identify best practices and opportunities for improvement with the new implementation. We focused on how competitive sites handled specific features, such as the search and filter function of Yelp, Airbnb's booking process, or Pinterest's modular grid design, to see what worked and what didn’t.
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Heuristics Analysis
We used Abby Covert’s heuristics analysis to see how competitors’ sites measured across 10 key factors related to a site’s experience. The analysis showed us that Meetup could currently improve by being more:
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Communicative — due to inconsistencies the site had in establishing context and a sense of place.
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Controllable — by not always providing advanced search functions or filtered searches.
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Delightful — by providing a better discoverability element to the users' experience.
Layout Analysis
A layout analysis was made that would later facilitate us in the design stage. It revealed the level of importance other sites gave to key conventions such as images boxes, search fields, CTA and maps.
User Research and Synthesis
Focusing our user research on two main users, Event Organizers and Venue Owners (Organizers and Venues), we created separate survey questions for each. Survey participants answered a set of initial screener questions that would direct them either to the Organizer questions or the Venue questions.
Of 78 total responses we received, 49 respondents were Organizers and 26 were Venue people. We recruited participants for more in-depth user interviews by reaching out to a selected sample of survey participants. We subsequently interviewed 8 people total, 5 being Organizers and 3 being Venue people. These interviews were conducted both remotely and in-person.
Our notes from the interviews were synthesized into two affinity maps by user type so we could see the most important issues in the minds of both users. Despite each person having different experiences, we were able to highlight shared concerns and interests across the board.
Organizer (red) and Venue (blue) affinity maps
Primary User Personas
Affinity mapping allowed us to see common issues and pain points among the users we interviewed and define our Primary user personas for Organizer and Venue users.
In finding the right venue to host her event, our primary Organizer persona "Celine" needed a way to filter her search results according to various specifications (time, date, capacity, venue type, location, etc). Our primary Venue persona "Michael" needed to ensure details and visuals of his space were showcased front and center on the site, that the communication process with potential clients was streamlined and included a way to screen for clients/events that would be appropriate for his space.
Design Sprint
Conducting a design sprint became a highly productive and efficient way of coming up with design solutions for the feature. As a team we came up with a lot of designs and were able to build off of each others ideas and collaborate in a cohesive way. I liked the fact that it was a time-boxed exercise that gave everyone a chance to be heard and be given feedback. From this sprint, we came up with the basic foundation for our homepage, search results, and venue profile wireframes.
Minimum Viable Product
Though there were many solutions from the design studio that we wanted to implement with Meetup’s new function, we needed to scale back our ideas and focus on only the main features for our Minimum Viable Product. To do this we used the MoSCoW method which determined for us only the most necessary things we needed to build out.
User Flows
We mapped out the user flows for each user to determine the different steps they could take in performing specific tasks with the new feature.
Organizer User Flow
Venue User Flow
Prototyping / Wireframes
Our first low-fi wireframes were rapidly tested as paper-prototypes on 3 users to get a sense of how users reacted in terms of pacing and if they encountered any hesitation points along the way. Testing our ideas this early and at such a low fidelity allowed us to quickly see glaring issues with our ideas in a very low-risk way.
Version 1
Feedback from our first prototype was incorporated in the second version of our wireframes. Version two was a higher fidelity paper-prototype that was tested on 6 people; 3 users performing a task as an Organizer and 3 users performing a task as a Venue Owner. We received the following feedback:
Organizer User Test:
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[2 out of 3 users] — Unclear over why there are two different types of searches next to each other.
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Solution: Give users the choice to show or hide the filtered search options.
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[2 out of 3 users] — Unclear of how "venues you may like" was determined.
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Solution: Clearly indicate that suggestions are based on users' interests as existing Meetup members.
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Venue Owner User Test:
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[2 out of 3 users] — Confused over the design of the uploaded photos area.
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[2 out of 3 users] — Needed more information in the payment fields.
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Solution for both: Design is too vague/unclear. Display standard conventions for both.
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Version 2
Our third and last prototype was a high-fidelity mock-up where a total of 5 users were tasked with finding and reaching out to an appropriate venue for their upcoming event. We gauged for the time it took users to complete the task and whether they had any hesitation points along the way.
Version 3
User task and results for Version 3
Next Steps
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Continue R&D on the “Check availability” section of the Venue profile page
Though a calendar was used as a place holder in the prototype, it actually was not a practical way for clients to check for a venue’s availability. This is due to ever-shifting schedules which are time-sensitive and also relative to a venue’s available rooms, floors, sections, etc. -
Continue building out the content structure of the Venue profile section
There are more details that could be added to the Venue profile page to make it useful for the organizer who will use it. -
Include actual site information for payment process pages in the prototype
Our team did not have access to this content, but this could have helped us fully realize the section for our mock-up. -
Enhance the browsing feature for venues
Provide more information where venue images are listed. Provide users with starting rates, ability to “heart” venues to be saved and later compared with other venues. Provide venue ratings and reviews to better inform prospective clients -
Add a breadcrumb trail
This would help our users find their way back to the Homepage.