RSVP is a light-weight event creation app which lets you invite guests using a sharable link. The best bit? Your guests don’t need the app or an account to rsvp. This is a side project I’ve been working on with a very talented developer - Summer!

Role

UI / UX Designer

Team

Summer Jones

2020 - 2021

Creating events and inviting guests is well trodden ground, but we believe there is a gap which no one is currently occupying

Starting Assumptions

Getting your friends together can be a lot like herding cats. There are some great options out there for inviting guests to events, like Facebook, but not everyone uses it. And the more manual alternatives, like Whatsapp, can be cumbersome to use.

We believed there might be an opportunity here, so we conducted a small survey of 60 people to find out more

When asked how they invite guests to events of different sizes:

Small Events

A coffee, a few pints with friends or a chill in the park

Medium Events

Meal out, a dinner party or karaoke

Large Events

House party, a pub crawl, a BBQ or live music

Options included: Facebook, Google Calendar invite, Create a Whatsapp group, Paperless Post, Email, SMS or Whatsapp message, face to face, phone call, other (please specify).

“Events are easier to create on facebook”

Selection: Facebook

”Good group chats. Doesn’t require anyone to check social media.”

Selection: Create a Whatsapp Group

”Easy to plan / for people to reply. Also may not have phone numbers for everyone at larger event.”

Selection: Facebook

“Used to use FB event more because it was easy to invite and for people to respond without a lot of faff, but now probably a WhatsApp group because that’s what people use the most.”

Selection: Facebook, Create a Whatsapp Group

”Group chats are easiest to arrange something with multiple people”

Selection: Create a Whatsapp Group

“I know everyone is available there”

Selection: SMS or Whatsapp Message

Conclusions

Unsurprisingly, Facebook was a favourite for arranging larger events. Surprisingly, both sending individual messages and creating a Whatsapp group were top choices no matter the size.

Through conversation with participants and friends, we found that while Facebook is still a top choice for the majority, Whatsapp is usually the first alternative. The main reason given was quite simple – not everyone uses Facebook anymore.

With such a small sample size (and a majority of participants based in London), we took these findings with a pinch of salt. Ideally, we would have surveyed a much larger group which could have fairly represented 18 - 45 year olds in the UK.

We could have also conducted structured follow-up interviews to get a complete picture of the problem and the kinds of people who would be open to trying the product.

Competitors

Making quite a few assumptions, we can sort our competitors into three groups based on the functionality they offer:

  1. High utility, high effort. Due to the sheer range of features offered and the amount of time it takes to set up an event.
  2. Medium utility, high effort. These apps cater to different user needs, centred around managing larger events. They also require users to enter information manually.
  3. High utility, low effort - occupied by Facebook and Google who both offer event creation and invitation features. This is where we believe we can stake a claim.

Ultimately, we decided that there was an opportunity to launch an event creation app which would replace Whatsapp as the first alternative to Facebook

Goals

  1. Allow guests to respond without asking them to sign up
  2. Creating an event must be quick and require minimal effort
  3. The app must be completely free to use

Achieving the first goal was as much a technical problem as a UX problem, we eliminated several options due to challenges in their implementation.

We settled on invite links - users create an event and then share a generic link through which their guests can respond (they can also directly invite other app users by syncing their contacts).

To add a level of security, we decided to give users the option of creating a secret question (a password) which guests must answer in order to view the invite.

We started with wireframes of the key flows to scope out the remaining features required for launch and beyond

Usability testing

We conducted 7 usability tests with users aged 24 to 50 years old. Using a high-fidelity Figma prototype we asked participants to complete several tasks across happy paths and edge-cases.

In addition to a few minor usability and messaging issues, we found:

  1. Our approach to the sign up later journey was causing confusion and irritation
  2. There were concerns around how safe it was to share private information (e.g. a home address) on a public url

Encouragingly, all participants expressed a positive opinion of the concept and affirmed they would try it. And the in-app descriptions of how an invite link works adequately explained the concept, even though participants had not seen or used an invite link at that point.

And here's how it works

Fixing the sign up later journey

We needed users to verify their number, but wanted to give them a chance to play around with the app before committing. In testing, we allowed participants to create an event and invite link before verifying, though the link would not work until they had verified.

To avoid deceiving users, we included several prompts telling them they must verify to invite guests to an event.

This message caused irritation and confusion among participants because they were being led to believe that they might not need to verify, only to find out after additional steps that they do.

We solved this by simply not letting users create an invite link before verifying. Instead, in order to still showcase this feature, we decided to present the user with the two options for inviting guests – with the immediate next step taking them to a CTA which explains the feature and asks them to verify to continue.

Development is under way and we’re in the process of finalising what's in the MVP

The immediate next tasks revolve are branding, launch material and usability testing for future features.

We will also be setting up a newsletter, so if you’d like to find out more or get involved message me at hello@liamliam.co.uk.

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