The Greater Club
We created a mobile app for a business club
Role in the team: UX Lead and UX designer
Duration: 2 Weeks
Team mates: Liana Liep, Shu Fang Tay, Angeline Quah
Context
The Greater Club is a business club that aims to create fun and productive work-social spaces. The experience here is about learning from one another while having fun and this is done through events.
Today’s experience
Currently, it is tedious for the members to sign up for events and taxing for the team to coordinate plans.
Members have to scour through their bursting inboxes for the event invitation, and craft a reply to indicate their interest– all of which takes significant time and effort, especially when our users are busy directors, CEOs and senior executives. Nearer to the event, they would then be required to fill in forms to indicate their food preferences or other details.
In turn, the lean team at the Greater Club will reply each of these emails with the follow up steps and would collate and analyse the data from the forms. Attendance during the event is also taken manually.
The members are a little bit vexed and the lean team is stretched.
Why are we redesigning the app?
A redesigned mobile app makes it easier for club members to browse events, confirm their attendance independently and make room bookings– all of which are currently facilitated by a lean team who needed support. This app therefore also helps the lean team better organise and manage events (in other words, it is an app for members and also a work app for the team).
Encouraging self-directed bookings and event attendance helps the Greater Team to be able to redirect effort to making the experience at The Greater Club better.
While we encouraged more self-direction with the app, we made sure that we did not lose the personalised service that members liked (which they also mentioned during our interviews).
We didn’t pluck our findings out of thin air
We chose to interview two groups: 5 members of the club and 5 other members who were part of another club.
By speaking to non-members, we started to understand why they did not join The Greater Club and what their painpoints were with their clubs. We used that insight to inform our app designs and also provided actionable advice to our client based on what we found out.
Who are we saving & their icks, ouchies and headaches.
What’s surprising to you? My guess is that you didn’t think CEOs or C-suite managers would think socialising is awkward and that networking was energy zapping.
💡1. Our research has revealed that regardless of who club members are at work, they are still human. Like many of us, they feel awkward while socialising - they just take it in their stride. As with every human, all the talking and interaction can also tiring.
💡2. Every one of our companies only has a few c-suite members and maybe one CEO or chairman. So, when asked about their career journeys, “lonely” was a common description.
Sneak peek of the process 👀
User interviews were the best way for us to understand our users
I also participated in two of the events to observe operations and behaviours to understand what worked and what didn’t
Affinity maps were used to consolidate and pinpoint the main problems
TLDR.
Essentially, this was what club members wanted
And overall, this is what our client and members needed to meet their goals
Notice the labels 1, 2 and 3.
This is a symbol we will use in the solutions to explain what feature solves which problem.
The new experience when it comes to signing up for events
Our Final Design
Improved based on usability tests with members and clients. Fuelled by coffee and fries.
Signing up for an event
The features helps users know what they are attending and provides them with a clear sign up process. They can also needed to indicate their food preferences which changes rather often.
This was crucial to reducing the workload for the team because the process can now be self directed.
Before we decided on this design, our first round of usability tests revealed 8/8 of our users were able to complete the sign up and event confirmation. It meant that we didn’t need to change anything! 🥹
Confirmation of attendance
A few days prior to the event, users would be required to confirm their attendance (because their schedules might change at the last minute).
1) Members needed to know that they have a spot at the event.
2) To avoid double booking, they could also add the event to their calendar.
3) Members needed to know who was attending so that they could make full use of their time having fruitful conversations. It also helps them to be less awkward at the events since they know who to expect. Therefore, they could see who was attending the same event.
Last minute cancellations are also common
Members were often busy and have had to cancel at the last minute.
This feature was crucial for members to communicate their attendance status quickly and effectively so that the Greater Team could make the necessary changes.
By providing members with the option to explore other events at the end of this cancellation, we would prevent the members from missing out on other occasions that might interest them.
Before we had this design, 2/8 of our users felt like they were being guilt-tripped when they read the confirmation pages of the cancellation. This was what we changed.
2. We also simplified the dietary requirements section for clarity (both for the club members and the team)
Simpler options = Faster decisions = Simpler collation of data and planning.
The team on the other hand needed to know who was going and how much food they needed to prepare as quickly as possible. The pie chart was the best way to present this information clearly.
Initially we used a bar chart to illustrate food preferences but the Greater Team thought that it meant that each food requirement (eg. vegan, halal etc) was not mutually exclusive. This caused more confusion and longer decision making when it came to food prepping.
We then changed it to a pie chart for a clearer illustration of proportions.
One glance to know it all.
The entire team needed to know who was at the event
Previously, attendance was taken manually but now, members can sign in on their own. The team can then focus on making making guests feel more comfortable at an event.
The team can still help some members to join events upon request. Therefore allowing them to provide that personalised service that The Greater Club takes pride in.
The team can also contact members instantly via Whatsapp or a call to confirm their attendance. Whatsapp is placed nearer to the right hand side because its their main form of communication and the right hand side of the screen is the easiest to reach.
Prior to this design, usability tests revealed that 2/3 of the staff needed to be able to see which club member required a follow-up and wanted to be able to message or call them on the app easily.
So we made it more detailed and added a Whatsapp function for easier use by the staff. We also added a QR code scanner to facilitate easier attendance taking.
Less manual, faster, more accurate.
Members needed to know if there were any updates
Updates like location changes, new information or even their membership status related updates had to be presented in a timely manner.
We designed notifications and a dashboard that showed their recent activity as well as updates.
This was crucial for members to know what they needed to know should they have forgotten or if there were any changes. This helps them to prepare for events.
Besides, members receive a lot of information on the daily so the updates we send needs to be succinct and has to stand out.
The team also doesn’t have to send out mass messages to each person informing them of an update, therefore saving time.
Double booking was a common problem
Hectic schedules calls for clear and simple overviews of what happens in the month so that you can be better prepared for an event.
We improved on how we presented information on notifications
We changed the colour of the new notifications that needed to be read. We made it look clickable and significantly different from older notifications.
We also used different illustrations to indicate different notification types. This helps users to understand the page better.
Usability tests revealed that 4/8 users could not find the notifications easily and had issues understanding each notification. So we made the following changes
Groupings were crucial to creating bonds between members
Providing groupings before the event helped members to feel at ease and less awkward at these events. Especially when they did not know anyone.
Groupings created better relationships because they were able to have uninterrupted time to socialise within their groups.
Events at The Greater Club often had small activities. Collaborative work reflected someone’s true personality and helped members to know who they could click with.
We also had a page showing each person’s profile and their interests so that its easier to start conversations with one another.
5/8 participants in the usability test mentioned that they found knowing who is in the groups beforehand useful for starting conversations. Therefore, we kept this feature.
It was important to make conversations less awkward
Networking is tough. We needed a way for users to know who they might want to talk to and what they could talk about.
This makes interactions more purposeful, less awkward and more fun.
