LineUp — Crowdsourcing Wait Times
LineUp is an app that uses crowdsourcing to gain the data of how long lines are outside of clubs and bars. Great idea, yes, however like most crowdsourcing apps or sites the challenge is always to get users to engage more with the content and not just use the service for viewing. The CEO of LineUp had this issue also, so hired a team of three of us to look into the following:
1. Understand the psyche of the LineUp user
2. Design an interface that makes it easy and fun to report wait times
3. Test out potential solutions
Team & Roles:
Ash Burke (Myself) — UX/UI Designer
Christiaan Montgomery — UX/UI Designer + Point of Contact
Sergey Bestuzhev — UX/UI Designer
Upon our initial meeting with Niki the CEO and developer of LineUp we discovered that there is a bigger picture for LineUp. The idea is only starting with bars and clubs but the future goal is for the app to be used for anything with a long line weather it be the DMV, a restaurant or a sample sale.
With this information in mind we decided to Conduct a screener survey for people who generally use crowdsourcing sites/apps daily or weekly as well as interviewing the current primary users of LineUp. We did this as we felt the general crowdsourcing user would give valuable insights for when LineUP develops further out of the nightlife scene.
We conducted 7 interviews of the general crowdsourcing app/site user and 5 of the LineUp primary users. From there we created two different affinity maps.
We started with the general crowdsourcing user affinity map first and we had Niki the LineUp CEO come in and do it with us. Turns out Niki is a wiz at affinity mapping including creating ‘I’ statements. Having Niki come in was a great success as she understood our process more, gained her own user empathy and had trust in us for when we did the process again on her current LineUp users.
After completing the affinity map for the LineUp users we discovered that the two user bases were much alike. This was a great insight to be able to hand over as we have discovered the goals, needs, behaviours and pain points were of both users. To create that one persona there were 7 ‘I’ statements that drove those decisions.
• I rely heavily on information provided by other users
• I use rewards/incentives when I can save money
• I like when apps are customized to me
• I like when apps give me rewards for completing a task
• I want my reviews to be helpful to others
• I use crowdsourcing apps/sites to make travel decisions
• I use crowdsourcing apps when they fit my daily routine
For the purpose of developing the design suggestions for the current LineUp app we gave our persona a nightlight scenario.
In order to see where we could best implement design opportunities we created a user journey for Michael’s typical evening out in Manhattan.
The Opportunity:
How might we encourage Michael to report on LineUp and give him clarity on wait time reporting while helping him to achieve his goal?
Although we had gathered a significant amount of data from our research, we wanted to ensure that our ideas were aligned with the users who had spoken with, so we went back to our interviews to look at specific opportunities within the current LineUp app.
With design opportunities in mind, as well as data collected from our research, we now went into designing an engaging interface for the next version of the app, starting with feature prioritization.
The “Must” category represents features that will be included in the re-designed app
Must: The 5 in bold are not in the current version of the app that should be implemented and the other 5 are currently in the app but will be redesigned
The “Should” category represents features that will be added if there is enough time.
The “Could” category represents features that fit in to the app re-design, but probably will not make it in to the first iteration.
Finally, the “Won’t” category represents features that will not make it in to the first iteration of the redesign but should be considered at some point in the future.
From here we moved to the Design Phase.
Our Design phase consisted of 3 parts:
- One was the Design Ideation where we worked on Home Screen, Rewards, Map, Venue and Additional Features using a pen and paper to create lo-fi sketches
- After creating lo-fi sketches and the data we collected, we created black and white mid-fi clickable prototypes that we then tested on 5 different users who have never seen the app before. The mid-fidelity prototype helped us test the functionality of the redesigned app
- With the data collected from mid-fi usability testing, we applied changes and created hi-fi prototypes with colors and style guides applied to whole design of the app. From there we went through a whole new round of 5 user interviews and collected as much data possible for next steps.
I would like to introduce you to the changes made and implemented into the mid fidelity prototype.
Now it was time to test these changes with two scenarios and tasks.
Results are in:
After we tested our mid-fi designs it was time to bring the designs to life in hi-fidelity, with a new color scheme and a cohesive style.
The same two scenarios and tasks were carried out for the Hi-Fidelity prototype both resulting in a successful report and no immediate recommendation needed at this point.
Main Takeaways:
This was a very interesting project and problem space to undertake. There was a lot of ambiguity and psychology elements along the process especially around the general concept of time.
There were service design touchpoints where we had to consider the user before and after they were engaging with the app.
Also working with a client that trusted the UX process and brought such great energy and enthusiasm really helped the running of the project.
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