Problem.

- Struggle to find new restaurants / events around town.

- Struggle to coordinate with groups.

- Pairing 2+ stops during a night out. 

Solution.

- Map with dynamic filters that shows local restaurants, bars, venues.

- Messaging functionality that includes group chat and polling. 

- Specials, deals, coupons, including combo deals that combine 2 locations.

Summary.

I was given the vague task of designing an "entertainment app." During interviews, several subjects voiced frustration over finding new, exciting restaurants, bars, and venues in their neighborhoods. Coordinating groups, and achieving consensus within the group were also mentioned as pain points.
The Blippy App was designed over a 4-day design sprint and aims to alleviate those issues.

Role.

Mr. DIY - Research, wireframing, prototyping.

Methods. 

User interviews, topic maps, empathy maps, user flows, sketching, wireframing. 

Deliverables.

A clickable wireframe prototype built in Balsamiq.

Story. 

The design for the Blippy App started with two simple questions: 

"How do you define entertainment?"  "What do you do for fun?"

These two questions drove the discovery phase of my interview process. I approached problem-finding with no bias, determined to allow my research of user needs and pain points to inform the solution I designed. 

The vast majority of the subjects that I interviewed defined "entertainment" within the scope of the entertainment industry - essentially, watching Netflix. 

When asked what issues they ran into as they navigated these digital experience they voiced few; and of course, services like Netflix, Hulu, and Apple TV are big-ticket apps that have been carefully designed and developed using millions of dollars in investment capital. 

The much more interesting responses came from those who like to spend their leisure time outside of their homes, eating at restaurants or visiting venues with friends. 

Pain Points.

"I really like to try new places to eat or have drinks with friends, but it's hard to keep up with new places opening up."

"I go out with friends once or twice a week, the real headache is getting everyone to agree where to go."

These pain points provided a great problem space with clear needs that could be alleviated with an app. Users were using a mix of technologies including !Yelp, Google and iMessage to find new places to go and coordinate with friends. Yet, the results where unsatisfying. 

With a little empathy I was able to really hone in on our goals: 

• Allow users to easily browse local restaurants, bars and venues.
• Help users identify new places to go for dinner or drinks.
• Allow users to collaborate and reach consensus on where to go. 
• Encourage users to experience their local spots through specials, coupons and deals that combine a restaurant and a bar or club together. 

These goals allowed us to create user stories that gleaned a set of MVP features: 

• An interactive map that displays and lists local restaurants, bars, etc. and allows users to filter by food type, distance, cost and ratings. 
• Messaging capabilities that allow for 1-to-1 messaging, group messaging, and the creation of polls. 
• An ad board for curated offers and announcements. 

A storyboard helped align these features to best serve the needs of the user. 

SKETCHES.

With an understanding of the necessary pages and flows, I was ready to start building my clickable wireframe prototype in Balsamiq that walks through our 3 key MVP features. 

Prototype.