The Knot
Redesigning Wedding Websites for the wedding guest experience
Background
XO Group The Knot is a media and technology company that offers products and services for couples planning a wedding, including a couples personalized wedding website. I, along with a team of two others, was brought on board to research the way in which wedding guests of all demographics are using, accessing and finding content on couples wedding websites. We presented our findings to the larger product team and provided templates and a navigational study based on our findings.
My Role
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User Research
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Wireframes
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UX Design
Platform
Responsive Web
Tools
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Sketch
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Invision
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Keynote
Duration
2018 | 3 Months
Project Goals
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Identify the tech touchpoints for guests visiting a wedding website.
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Identify the timeline in which a wedding guest decided to attend a wedding.
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Determine how guests use a wedding website as a tool for planning their attendance.
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Identify frustrations and pain points wedding guests face when receiving information on a wedding website.
Problem Statement
In this current day of technology, personalized wedding websites have become a new form of tradition as they serve as a central platform to communicate the details of a wedding to guests as they plan the logistics around attending. However, throughout the planning process, guests find that there is often a lack of clarity or missing information on the website, leaving them feeling confused or uninformed. This ultimately requires guests to expend more effort doing their own research in order to make confident decisions regarding logistics in an already planning-intensive process.
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How might we communicate the couple’s wedding information in a way so that guests can confidently plan their attendance accordingly without detracting from their excitement of the event?
Research Methods
Competetive Analysis
We relied heavily on competitive analysis to understand how information on our competitors' wedding websites is structured and how that information is presented to guests.
Heuristic Analysis
We referred to the Nielson Norman Groups Heuristic guidelines when evaluating the UI of ours and our competitors websites.
User Interviews
We interviewed 16 people, male and female between the ages of 21-63, all of whom had attended at least 2 weddings within the last year.
Persona Development
A persona was developed to communicate and humanize our research findings and insights.
Core Research Findings
After we had concluded all of our user interviews, we used a technique known as Affinity Mapping to cull core user insights. We then determined that there are four major factors that wedding guests consider when deciding to RSVP to a wedding invite, and how Wedding Websites can either motivate or detract from their enthusiasm to attend the event. We presented our research and findings in a Keynote presentation to the rest of the XO Group product team.
"What impacts my decision to attend?"
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My personal relationship to the couple.
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How excited I feel about the wedding event.
"What do I need to coordinate to attend?"
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Planning to attend takes a lot of effort
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The more information available to the guest, the easier it is to plan
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Lack of or unclear information leads to less confident decision making
"How can I be the best guest?"
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RSVPing on time
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Buying a thoughtful gift
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Wearing the right thing
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Not stressing out the couple
"What do I enjoy most about weddings?"
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Making a weekend out of it
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Well choreographed events
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Socializing with other guests
The Solution
After our Keynote presentation, we were tasked with conducting a navigation study and creating wireframes for the wedding website template.
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*Note: because the redesign of the wedding websites is still under development, I do not have permission to disclose the outcomes of our navigation study, wireframes, or final designs. If you are interested in viewing the research presentation, feel free to contact me!