Reimagining the dinner party hosting experience with Gather
Background
Sharing meals is more than just about nourishing our bodies; it plays a vital role in our social and emotional well-being. Gathering around a table for events like dinner parties, holiday celebrations, barbecues, and brunch is a cherished tradition that strengthens relationships, fosters community, and enhances our mental health.
However, hosting these gatherings can be daunting due to the complexities involved. The coordination of tasks, managing dietary needs, and creating a welcoming atmosphere can overwhelm hosts, leading to overlooked details and stress. This labor of love often detracts from the host’s ability to fully engage with their guests.
Role
UX/UI Design
User Research
Tools
Figma
FigJam
Maze
Zoom
Otter.ai
Project type
Student capstone for Designlab
Research
To start the project, I planned and conducted research to explore the topic. I interviewed four individuals aged 24 to 31 who had hosted at least three meal-centered events in the past year. These interviews provided insights into their challenges, needs, and goals.
Based on these insights, I performed a competitive analysis, identifying products that supported planning smaller events and group meal cooking beyond typical family sizes. I found one direct competitor (Partytrick) and two secondary competitors (BigNight and Wholesum).
User research goals
- Identify what hosts value and prioritize the most while planning and preparing for a gathering
- Understand the challenges hosts face throughout the entire process of hosting a meal-focused gathering
Sample of interview questions
- What is most important to hosts while planning and preparing for a meal-focused gathering?
- What pain points do hosts experience while planning and preparing for a meal-focused gathering?
- How do hosts stay organized and manage their time while planning and preparing for a meal-focused gathering?
Key findings:
Competitive Analysis
Lack of personalization
All competitors lacked personalization and customization. Partytrick, for example, offered about 10 preset recipes and a generic, non-editable checklist per event, which didn’t account for user needs or preferences.
No automation
None of the competitors leveraged automation. Even worse, two of the competitors (BigNight and Wholesum) required users to enter an extensive amount of information manually, which was needlessly time-consuming.
User Interviews
Decision paralysis with recipes
Despite the abundance of online recipes, hosts often struggle to find ones that match their needs and abilities, and crafting a cohesive, well-balanced menu is time-consuming.
Experiences beyond the plate
Hosts want to create a memorable experience beyond the plate. They’re interested in drink pairings, food presentation, table settings, and ambiance but often feel intimidated.
Scattered tools lead to oversights
Hosts often use various tools for event planning, which can lead to scattered details and confusion, causing important information to be overlooked or forgotten.
Underestimating the effort required
Hosts often underestimate the effort needed to prepare multiple recipes at once, leaving even experienced multitaskers stuck in the kitchen as guests arrive.
Define
User personas
I created two user personas to reflect the two types of hosts that emerged during user interviews. These personas guided my decisions and maintained my focus on users’ goals and challenges throughout the remainder of the project.
Exploring ideas
Using insights from user research, I created user personas and developed key “How Might We” questions to address identified challenges. I focused on automation and personalization to streamline event planning, since those were two big themes the competitors were missing.
Feature roadmap
I used the MoSCoW method to prioritize feature ideas and structure the roadmap. I focused first on establishing the product’s basic architecture, then prioritized three key features: event creation, menu planning, and day-of event preparation scheduling to address “How Might We” questions and meet user needs.
Mobile app sitemap
With the features locked in, I developed a sitemap for the mobile app to visually represent the placement of content within the app and illustrate its connections to other key features and screens.
Task flows
Following the feature determination and mobile app sitemap creation, I created three task flows.
Task flow 1: Create an event
This task flow demonstrates the steps both of our user personas, Aubrey and Talia, would take to set up their first event right after signing up for or signing in to the app.
The dashboard design is customized based on each user’s unique event details, so setting up the event right away is important.
Task flow 2: Menu planning
I created this task flow that reflects the flow both user personas would take to utilize the AI menu planning tool, view the personalized recipe results, and add one of those recipes to their final event menu.
As both of the user personas experience unique concerns about menu planning, the design of this task flow ensures that they have the final say in what recipes are included in their final menu, offering peace of mind, all while simultaneously saving them a lot of time and energy by cutting out the typical time-consuming recipe browsing process that they’ve experienced in the past.
Task flow 3: Complete step in day-of event schedule
I designed this task flow to demonstrate both user personas returning to the app on the day of the event and utilizing the event day schedule feature to view the first step they need to complete in preparation of their guests arrival.
Design
Lo-fi wireframes
I started the wireframing process by exploring several key screens: the dashboard, the schedule, the questionnaire recipes and the event menu. Then, I turned the best design from my exploration into a wireflow, with additional screens and a bit more detail added to the designs.
Brand Identity for Gather
Throughout the user interviews I conducted in the research stage, I heard one word over and over again that really struck me as the perfect name for the mobile app: Gather.
Gather is defined as bringing people or resources together, and that’s exactly what this app does. It empowers hosts to gather and access all of their party planning details in one app (instead of multiple different apps or scraps of paper) in pursuit of gathering their loved ones around a table.
Gather’s brand keywords include creativity, adaptability, confidence, proactivity, and clarity.
Typography design decision
Onest was selected as the typeface for Gather’s brand identity for its character, versatility, and modern feel.
Often compared to Arial and Montserrat, Onest contributes to legibility, readability, and overall functionality for Gather’s headings, body text, and functional text.
Color palette design decision
The medium periwinkle primary color perfectly encapsulates what Gather is all about: creativity and calmness. Not only is it unique, it’s also versatile and accessible in a variety of applications, making it an excellent selection.
Combined with the rich green and bold orange creates a distinct triadic color scheme that livens up Gather’s clean screen designs.
Logo design decision
Gather’s logo is inspired by all of the plates you’d find on top of a table during a dinner party or holiday meal, and the closeness – in both a physical and emotional sense – between hosts and guests. The logo typeface is Gopher Text.
Iconography & Illustrations design decision
Icons were selected from Material’s symbols collection. In alignment with the rest of the brand, rounded icons were selected for their modern and minimalistic feel.
A few simple line illustrations were designed to add more personality to the brand and used selectively across the UI.
Hi-fi wireframes
I translated my initial low-fidelity mockups into high-fidelity wireframes for the new feature by applying the newly designed Gather brand to mid-fidelity wireframes.
Diving deeper into a few screens…
Dashboard
After signing in, users land on their personalized dashboard that features shortcuts to their core event details and highlighted action items, taking the guesswork out of event planning.
Event plan
After sharing their preferences, users can easily find, review, and edit all of their event details in one centralized place.
Testing
I conducted usability testing via Maze using a prototype for the three task flows, involving four participants between the ages of 23 and 65 who reported having hosted 6-20 meal-centered events in in the past year. I organized my findings with an affinity map to identify common themes and prioritized revisions using an impact-effort matrix.
Results
The testing went exceptionally well. No significant issues were raised and participants shared a lot of positive feedback about the product.
100%
successfully completed all three task flows.
100%
reported that the task flows were very easy to complete.
100%
said they could see themselves using the Gather app regularly.
Six opportunities emerged from the usability testing. Three of these opportunities were ideas for new features that were beyond the scope of this project (shopping list generation, ability to plan multiple events at once, and recipe imports from a variety of sources). Amusingly, I had already documented these in my feature roadmap when I originally created it, which was a boost of confidence.
Revisions from usability testing
Planning around specific ingredients ⎯ I added a new question in the menu planning flow asking users if they want to include specific ingredients in recipe suggestions. This helps users utilize ingredients they already have or try new ones.
Tracking questionnaire progress ⎯ I introduced a progress bar to all question screens, a feature I had considered and now confirmed through testing.
Clean up the event schedule UI ⎯ I updated the design of preparation step cards in the day-of event schedule to make tags more noticeable and connected to the individual step detail screens.
Final prototype
After updating my prototype with the revisions from usability testing and updating my roadmap with the testing feedback that was outside of the scope, the project was complete.
Because Gather’s task flows are split between two different time periods (preparing for the event in days, weeks, or months in advance vs. executing on the plans on the day of the event), I split up the prototypes to make them easier for you to explore!
Conclusion
Key takeaways
A key consideration from this project is the ongoing challenge of siloed data.
Many apps fulfill specific niches but fail to integrate various user needs, which is crucial for integrated planning approaches like the one required in this project.
Next steps
Get working on the rest of the roadmap! The work required to enable users to plan simultaneous events and add a co-host (or two), plus the delivery app integration really excite me in particular.
Designing screens and content for additional event areas: drink pairings, party decor, music selection, and kids’ activities, leveraging the successful menu planning flow.
Special thanks
All of the food photographs and recipes used in this project are from Just One Cookbook. You can find them, plus hundreds of other delicious recipes, at justonecookbook.com.