Meetup — A case study
Meetup is a great app, and has a fantastic proposal, how can we make a good idea, even better? My challenge is to propose a new feature to this app, with a user-centered focus. I will guide you through the whole process from the beginning to the end, so get ready and join me.
How else?
It’s tough for me to socialize. Even when I want to , it’s not easy to find what will work. Meetup has given me a chance to connect with people based on mutual interests without feeling forced to socialize more than I want to. I started out with a movie meetup, something I often do alone.i had the option of socializing after too. Next I tried a local place where we could play video games and have snacks or drinks . I then found a group that meets up at a coffee shop to get paperwork done! I had been dreaming of finding something this, I even tried to place an ad for a buddy prior to meetup . I haven’t tried started a meetup but it’s also a possibility here. I found fellow sci fi lovers too, who knew ?!The fact that I can pick and choose is ideal.
If you haven’t tried meetup I say go for it! I am normally leery of people too and meetup provides a nice balance of meeting ,safety, interests and exploration.
The groups are generally closed I found that to join I can say a bit about my interests and check out other profiles. I love that I have been about to hang with a 70 yr old and a 20 year old finding common ground. I can leave if I want or stay for the duration. I can talk sci fi or knit ,color or draw , exercise or chill. It’s all there in meetup !
- An apple store user review
This review summarizes some of the feelings that users have about what meetup offers, the chance to create a community around a mutual interest, to learn something new, to make genuine connections.
You have probably heard about the meetup, the company was founded in 2002 by Scott Heiferman and four other co-founders, they have gained a lot of momentum connecting people, to find and develop local communities.
If you are still wondering, what all can this app lets you do, here is your answer:
- Exploration: Visit places and try new things with like-minded people.
- Build Career: To move forward in your career, you can build a network, learn a language, take a class, and pitch to investors through this app.
- Get Creative: If you are into any creative field, it’s advisable to create a group and get feedback on your work.
The app is weaved around one simple idea, “when we get together and do the things that matter to us, we’re at our best.”
Whatever may be the reason, social engagement over local groups and events is a brilliant approach to meet people and make connections, however, despite the fantastic idea behind the company, there is still room for improvement, and my job today is to find this design opportunity.
Being a passionate Meetup attendee myself, I wanted to answer these three initial questions:
Who, is using the app currently?
How are they using the app currently?
What is missing to make this great app, even greater? (Tough one I know)
Complex questions that I challenge myself to answer by knowing more about the user and the product, the first step in developing a meaningful feature.
Deep dive into the user and product.
Research stage
As a user, I know that what it proposes is accomplished. Several of my friends are also users, and many of them I met there. However, in the first phase of research, there were not many things that I saw as important changes to be done in the App.
Sure, many users complained about usability problems, which leads me to believe that usability tweaks are welcome, Did you hear me, meetup?
But I had to define something further, I couldn’t just do a usability tweak, keeping this in mind, helped me focus on listening more carefully to the user, to understand how they were using this app.
This was the first time I was lost in data, with a lot of information but not knowing exactly what to do with it.
Hello designers, here’s a note! Whenever you feel lost, as I did at the beginning of this project, reset your mind, start over with a CSD, and try to connect, eliminate and confirm points with the users.
Who is using this app?
I noticed during my qualitative research that two types of people use this application, and both had completely different wants and needs.
On one side we have the host, and on the other side, we have the event participant.
Based on my interviews I decided to create two personas that would help me further understand the particularities of each type of user.
So I introduce you, Andrea and Alessandro. (I know, all the creativity was put into this project and not into the persona names)
To make me think through all the different possibilities of why someone would use Meetup, I created a list of possible users, situations, motivations, and outcomes ( aka) the Jobs To Be Done framework.
This would help me understand the mindset and background of the users, their needs, and their goals.
I was a bit puzzled with so much information coming from users, I particularly had a large group of friends, with different interests, and only a few days to complete this design challenge.
What did I do? CSD matrix again, interviews, and an affinity map. (Yeah!)
What have I gained from this persistence and effort? Insights my fellows!
Very valuable insights.
I started to listen to the interviews again, and validate some points, and noticed that there were always strong feelings related to the events, both from the host and the participants.
Feelings of frustration, and fear, appeared in both personas when the experience was not so good, and feelings of gratitude, and happiness, also appeared at the end of a successful meetup, like a strange symbiosis between these two users, they were connected.
Once again Jobs to be done, needed to be hired, for which role? Make me understand possible situations, motivations and results fit into this scenario.
Analyzing my observations and synthesizing them, I have defined the main problem for users who participate in meetups.
Users want to communicate with organizers after the event.
For these users there is a break in the flow of Meetup currently, as the app does not offer the feature to give private feedback to the organizers, leading users to look to other social networks for contact.
Hypothesis
By giving users a voice to communicate their thoughts, and feelings about the meetup, attendees will become more engaged and active Meetup users will continue to grow.
Challenge Assumptions and Create Ideas
Brainstorm was particularly useful here:
Users experience a wide range of feelings after a meetup, feelings of gratitude, for example when they learned something new, they feel fulfilled.
When events are not so good, however, they are left with feelings of frustration, and there is a need to externalize this to the organizers.
Who can hear them? How can they express these feelings in a simple and anonymous way?
- Feature where the user can add anonymous reviews to a past meeting.
- The feature connects users who were at the last meetup.
I decided to go with the feature that allows anonymous reviews of a past event.
Prototype — Creating solutions
I don’t have to mention that flows and scenarios are a must, right guys?
Believe me, it takes a lot more time, skipping this step. It is very worthwhile to design a well-organized, well-structured flow, with a total focus on the user and their actions, this will save you a lot of time and bring clarity to the work, so keep these two tools very close.
Back to the process, I started wondering, where and when the user would use this feature. Also, what are the flows I imagine they’ll go through.
Following these questions, I have reached my first mid-fidelity prototype version.
To validate my proposed design solutions, I had to test my prototype on 5 additional people. Through testing, I discovered some of my redesigns weren’t performing as intended, and I could still work a bit more on my mid-fi prototype.
Once the adjustments were done, I moved on to my High-fi prototype, which I would like to share with you.
I feel that although there are iterations to be done, this project has been a success so far. I still have ideas and plans for this feature, which I will be discussing in the next steps.
NEXT STEPS
There is a mutual symbiosis between participants and organizers, the experience of each is interconnected, from the perspective of an event attendee to have a good event, you need good organization.
I would like to understand more about this other side of the coin, how the organizers feel, what improvements can they apply once the communication between them has been optimized?
As a next step, I would like to explore this feature with a focus on the organizer.
Furthermore, I would like to include important categories to be evaluated individually such as:
Meetup location
Organization
Interaction with the group.
Since these categories were often mentioned in the interviews as points of pain and gain.
Final Notes
This project taught me much more than I had imagined, when writing this article I could relive these moments. More than the design itself, this project has taught me that tools work, and they are here to help us,
When I started this challenge, I had no idea it would be so good and so rewarding to have worked on it, it showed me points that I really need to improve, for which I am extremely grateful, and it gave me confidence, and pride, of conclusions that I reached, just with my design process, by my own.
As a designer, this case study also taught me how to keep the people I am looking to help at the heart of the design process, after all, they are the ones we are designing for, what’s the point of betting on an idea that doesn’t comply with the user if the intention is to seek the success of the feature?
I genuinely believe in the success of this feature, and I believe that very soon, Meetup will be implementing it, why wouldn’t they?
It’s time for me to say goodbye, thank you for reading this far, and following my journey as a designer. I would love to know your thoughts about this challenge, so please leave your comment, I need feedback!
