Major Design Project
Wedding Planner Application
Design Thinking
The Problem
When a couple starts to plan their wedding they immediately think of their dream wedding. They envision the style and theme that suits them. This is influenced by whether they dream of a formal church wedding, casual hotel or beach. It’s influenced by the season they wish to be married in and their own personal tastes and interests. It’s important that the app opens by allowing the user to decide what they imagine their dream wedding to be. This gives the planner a starting place and allows the app to adapt to the user’s needs. Many brides to be are inspired by magazines and enjoy ‘’pinning their day’’ on Pinterest. Before there where apps like Pinterest every bride to be carried their scrap book of torn magazine cut outs of colour schemes and the dream dress. I want my app to have this same fun and exciting scrap book feel but without the time consuming cutting and sticking. I want the app to be their scrap book in their pocket they can present to everyone they speak with along the way.
Statistics & Research
Budget
The second question which enters the users mind is budget. This is where the fairy tale bubble can sometimes be popped. Once the user has decided on their venue and season this will give them an estimated budget. A more specific quote can come from a budget calculator. Sometimes when planning a wedding it’s easy to get carried away with adding different things which soon add up that could have been DIY or weren’t even necessary to begin with. If the couple can decide on the five most important things they know they have to have included in the wedding and lock these in at the beginning, this can help with the breakdown of costs and then they can see what they have left for the finishing touches and extras. I want this app to present their budget in a non-intimidating stress free manor. I want the budget to always be clear but maybe not necessarily in numbers. Graphics could replace money in this instance and further detail could be found if the user so desires. They don’t have to bury their head in the sand when it comes to budget but it doesn’t need to be in their face every time they open the app. The user should open the app and be inspired by images and themes and exciting ideas not money.
The Agenda
Once the style, budget and theme of the users wedding has been decided it's time for the fun part. Formally known as the stressful part. Working through your wedding checklist. I want the app to guide the user from their engagement to the ceremony. The layout should guide the user through their wedding without overwhelming in an organised well managed and well timed manor. It's important the layout of the app flows well possibly with a timeline element or count down to the big day. Everything should be categorised and designe to help manage every detail of the planning smoothly.
The first steps to my design process is to to gain an empathic understanding of the problem with existing wedding planner solutions.
Group Breakdown of research
Above is an image of messy thoughts collated from a group discussion looking at all the research I have deveolping insights into new findings and discoveries about engaged couples feelings and views about planning a wedding and how this could aid my design. insights included confusion about where to even begin planning and the hierarchy which comes with it. Midweek weddings being significantly cheaper yet Saturdays in August still being the prefered date. These Insights then lead to patterns of stress and money and trying to balance the dream wedding and reality of cost. This then helps me to persue these problems and solving them in my final design to help my app stand out from existing solutions.
The Breakdown of Costs
User Profile
Empathy Map
Sitemap
I created a sitemap to help me to visualise navigating the app and how it should be structured. This then lead to helping me realise the relationship between different pages.
Brand Idea
Lo-Fi wireframe sketches
Some quick sketches to help me plan out the various screen/pages that need to be created.
Hi-Fi Wireframe Layouts
Opening Screen
