Omakase
Overview
Omakase is a Houston-based startup whose goal is to develop an app that focuses on helping locals get personalized event recommendations.
Our client proposed that the solution was to create an app that users would select their interests upon onboarding, then proceed to the homepage to break their recommendations down further.
Client: Matthew Malonson (Founder)
Platform: Native IOS app
Timeframe: 4 weeks
My team: AUX5 (I worked within an agile team of 5 UX designers located in Austin, Texas)
“Omakase (pronounced “Oh-ma-kah-see”) is a Japanese word meaning “leave it to us”
Competitive Analysis
First, I looked at available event apps in Houston to understand who our competition was so that I could differentiate the app by looking at what they were and weren't doing. 365Houston, Stub-hub and Fever were a few examples of what I found.
My goal was to find out which event apps aren’t doing.
Results:
50% of the event apps I researched don’t offer personalized recommendations.
3 of the 4 that offered personalized recommendations were direct competitors
User interviews
As a team, we followed up the competitive analysis with eight user interviews and two Subject Matter Experts (SME). I interviewed two and took notes for two others interviews. With the insights gathered from those, we created an affinity diagram on Miro.
Our project moved quickly and we had just the weekend to interview them over Zoom. Unfortunately we faced a challenge here — some people were not showing up to their interview! We quickly pivoted to find new users that fit our research criteria.
The diagram encompassed so many insights that we needed to break them down into 3 large, overarching categories:
How to choose events
What information is seen
Social sharing
““All on it for me, everything in one app!””
Based on our research we gained a better understanding of users’ needs.
Users seem to enjoy the idea of an all-in-one, customizable resource to search and book tickets for events
Users do not like an overwhelming amount of options when trying to find something to do
People generally tend to share information about their plans with others
Many people rely on “word-of-mouth” recommendations
Pricing is an important factor is choosing what to do
Persona
I created a persona from our research that represents the users from our interviews. My Persona’s name is Maria Garcia. She is a friendly and outgoing person, around 30 years old and enjoys doing activities around her city.
Problem Statement Defined:
“Event attendees need a way to consolidate personalized event recommendations and information so that they can reduce the amount of time spent browsing for activities.”
Design Principles
Comprehensive
Provides an extensive selection of information on events for a complete one stop solution.
Personalized
Event recommendations specific to each user’s preferences.
Social
Keep users engaged with one another by sharing feedback and collaborating their plans.
Our visions are finally realized!
After learning and understanding the user needs based on all of the research, we started working on 3 “Divergent concepts”.
We designed a series of low-fidelity wireframes for each divergent concept. It was also a way for us to come up with a number of creative ideas together. I was in charge of working on the “weather” concept and I had a lot of fun bringing new ideas to the table.
“Weather” Concept:
No need to login at beginning
Weather & Interest based Recommendations
RSVP & Purchase Tickets in-app
“Create a Board” Concept:
Create an event board to sort your interests
Save events directly to your boards
Share your boards with your friends
“Mood” Concept:
Write and share reviews of your event experiences
'Spin the Wheel' to generate spontaneous ideas
See where your friends have been and how they reviewed their experiences
This round of user research focused on conducting usability tests, gathering and synthesizing user insights on 3 divergent concepts.
We interviewed 6 new people to decipher which concept they preferred most. I personally interviewed two interviewees and was note-taking for one of the interviews.
I Learned from our users:
Concept 1: “Weather” Concept
The interviewees generally liked and understood this concept.
The account creation process needs to be more clear.
Concept 2: “Create a Board” Concept:
The client liked the board customization and share option, but thought the user flow was less efficient and only friendly to Pinterest-users.
Users expressed initial uncertainty with the term 'Boards".
Concept 3: “Mood” Concept:
The client liked the Mood feature, Spin the wheel, Reviews page and Map view but there was confusion about most main features of the app (reviews, experience, plans).
The ability to share and post reviews with friends gained positive feedback.
The client gave us great feedback and told us not to forget the main idea that he proposed to us that “users would select their interests upon onboarding, then proceed to the homepage to break their recommendations down further”
Overall, we were very happy as a team that he really liked our 3 concepts.
The Solution!
Now that we have gathered ideas and feedback, the most exciting part of our journey is coming.
Our idea was to converge ideas and think about what the users and what the client proposed in one unique concept.
we had great discussions as a team and had the same ultimate goal of finding a concept that is efficient and easy to use based in our user research and our client preferences.
Let me proudly present our final concept:
A personalized event recommendation app that saves you time when finding your next fun event to attend.
Onboarding Interest Selection:
Following our personalized design principle, we gave users the chance to select their favorite interests.
Preselected interest options (in a final version there would be plenty more options)
Direct search for a particular interest
An option to add more types of interests
I strived to make the onboarding process easier and more user friendly.
*All of the UI (High-Fidelity) wireframes are made by me for my portfolio.
Homepage:
Following our personalized design principle, users can browse their personalized recommendations and then proceed to apply further filters to help categorize their options.
Sponsored Events
Filter selection (Mood feature)
Short list of interest-based recommendations
I worked on titles and fonts, the “Mood” feature carousel, and keeping the weather feature on events.
Creating / Sharing Albums:
To adhere to our social design principle, we created something that allows users to have the ability to create a shared album to collaborate plans.
Categorize your favorite events by creating and album
Name the album anything you’d like
The ability to invite your friends to collaborate on the album
Buying a Ticket:
Guided by our comprehensive design principle, we knew we needed to include a ticket purchasing system.
Select the type, quantity and date to purchase tickets
Complete the payment process through Apple pay
Prototype
*Please click expand arrows on the right side of the image below to enlarge
We concluded the project with another round of user interviews for the final converged concept design of the Omakase app.
The users were asked to try navigating and using the app as a usability test of the new converged concept. We sent them our Figma prototype that I will also share here:
We Tested our prototype with 8 users
75% (6 users) said they would actually download and use this app
All tasks were rated 5/5 on ease with a 100% completion rate
We did a final Zoom presentation with Matthew to show him our project and it was thrilling to see how much he appreciated our work.
Room for improvement?
We of course received some critical feedback from users and also from our client, so we took to the drawing board to provide our client with 3 ideas for future use based on the following suggestions:
Update profile and add more options for social sharing
Added more robust options
Expanded bottom nav to include “My Feed”
Change some naming conventions
The term “Album” caused users to think of collecting photos rather than organizing activities. One recommendation was “Itinerary,” but we believe further testing is necessary
The term “Moods” did not accurately describe the activity filter, so we suggested changing “Moods” to “Activities”
Include price comparison
Another suggestion from both some users and our client was to put less emphasis on extra fee transparency and replace it with a price comparison feature.
I am most proud of this project because it was my first one with an entirely UX Design lens. I am also proud to have created Omakaze with my amazing team and I am excited to share it with you.
Thank you for viewing!