Case Study:
Pemberley Estate
Wedding Venue Website
Project Overview
The Product
Pemberley Estate is a wedding venue that is historic and elegant, but also affordable. The typical user is between 25-40 years old and most are early career professionals. Pemberley’s goal is to make finding a wedding venue easy.
My Role
UX designer leading the desktop and mobile website design from conception to delivery.
The Problem
Wedding venues online aren’t able to view availability and pricing online.
Guests want real pictures of the venue to have a clearer idea of what it looks like.
Responsiblities
Conducting interviews, paper and digital wireframing, low and high-fidelity prototyping, conducting usability studies, accounting for accessibility, iterating on designs, determining information architecture, and responsive design.
The Goal
Design a website to be user friendly by providing availability and a fast photo submission process.
Project Duration
February 2023 to April 2023
Understanding the User
User Research
After conducting user interviews, I then turned the information gathered into empathy maps to understand the user and their needs better. I discovered many users are frustrated by wasting time trying to find a venue and then discovering it’s booked and that the venue doesn’t look anything like the pictures on the website.
Pain Points
Pictures - Venue websites don’t usually share their customers pictures leading to disappointment when they see the venue in person.
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Transparency - Prospective clients are frustrated by spending time contacting the venue and then finding out their desired date is not available or that the venue is out of budget.
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Experience - Finding the venue for your big day is stressful and can make couples want to give up.
Persona 1: Mariah
Problem statement:
Mariah is a busy teacher who needs a transparent and easy way to reserve a venue because they are planning their wedding.
User Journey Map
I created a user journey map of Mariah’s experience using the site to help identify possible pain points and improvement opportunities.
Starting the Design
Sitemap
Transparency with venues was a primary pain point for users.
My goal here was to make the structure of the website easy to navigate to improve the overall experience.
Paper Wireframes
Next, I sketched out paper wireframes for the homepage in my app.
The homepage paper wireframe variations focus on the overall experience for users.
Digital Wireframes
Moving from paper to digital wireframes made it easy to understand how I could address the user pain points and improve their experience.
Prioritizing visual element placement on the navigation bar and useful button locations was important.
Easy to access link that remain at the top of the page when scrolling
Buttons for submitting photos and scheduling a tour
Screen Size Variations
Taking into account the various screen sizes users use to access the site, I began to iterate on smaller screen size wireframe designs.
Desktop Digital Wireframe
Mobile Digital Wreframe
Usability Study
I conducted an unmoderated usability study with 5 participants using a low-fidelity prototype.
Findings
Round 1
File Selection - participants liked the drag and drop option feature.
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Gallery Setup - participants suggested desire to make pictures clickable.
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Easy But - all participants said the site was easy, but didn’t enjoy scrolling.
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Round 2
Easy - Gallery photo submission was intuitive and straightforward.
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Scrolling - participants want to preserve scroll position
Redefining the Design
Mockups
After the usability study, I moved the button for submitting photos to the top right to allow for text but also grab users attention so they don’t scroll all the way down the page.
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I made sure to include a variety of different couples in the gallery. Pictures also hover over the gallery when clicked on to zoom in.
Before Usability Study
After Usability Study
Mockups
Photo submission page
Before Usability Study
After Usability Study
Redefined Designs
The five screens for the main user flow.
High-Fidelity Prototype
The high-fidelity prototype followed the same user flow as the previous prototype. The logo and certain color choice were changed.
Accessibility Considerations
I used headings with different sized text for clear visual hierarchy and accessible fonts.
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I used appropriate contrasting colors in the design to insure ease distinguishing between colors.
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I tested the prototypes with a diverse group of users.
Going Forward
Takeaways
Impact:
“Submitting the photos is easy…The website is set up nicely. I like the colors. I like the pictures.”
- Usability Study Participant
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What I learned:
I learned that a small design choice that seems simple can take a long time to create, but will have a large impact on the user experience.
Next Steps
Conduct follow-up usability testing on the new website and mobile app.
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​Identify any additional areas of need and ideate on new features.