Plan It: Down-to-Earth Event Planning

By Lark Spartin, Gerardo Zamora, Samson Kneller and Dalmarr Hussein

Plan It is a party organizer app that can help novice and advanced users alike with their
event planning needs. When users enter the app, they can choose to plan an event or browse
available events. If the user decides to create a party plan, they can decide to choose from a
template, where the app will provide more guidance to the users. This stream is geared towards
beginners in party planning, or users that may need more help with the organizing process. The
app asks for basic input from the user, such as estimated number of guests, location, date, and a
type of party, such as a work event or late-night gathering. In turn, the app gives suggestions for a
party theme, decorations, drinks and games, as well as gives an estimated budget for the party it
chooses. The user could also decide to create their own plan from the home screen, which still
allows them to input basic information about their party, but provides less guidance from the app.
This stream of the app is geared towards more experienced party planners. The user can add their
own food and drink menu items, as well as their own customized list for decorations and games.
In both streams, when the user is done editing their plan, they can view it, share it, or save the plan
in their files. If a user is not interested in using Plan It to plan an event, they could also just browse
available events made by other users of the app by clicking the ‘Browse Available Events’ back
on the home screen.

In the last iteration of our design process, we changed our lo-fi paper prototype to better
suit a primary user's needs. Some of these changes included changing the terminology from
‘advanced and novice user’ to more straight forward options such as ‘Choose From Template’ and
‘Create Custom Event’, as users from our interviews didn’t understand the key differences between
the two streams in the paper prototype. We also changed some of the interface layouts, putting
options on separate pages to prevent a cluttered look. Many of the users wanted the option to be
able to type their own inputs, such as a description and location to their event. Users also wanted
a delete option when entering food, drink, decoration or game options. We also added a ‘Back’
and ‘Next’ button to provide more user freedom when editing and viewing event plans, as well as
an icon that takes a user back to the home screen on every page.

Applying Design Principles

Visibility

When designing our app, we kept the

visibility principle in mind. User experience was
at the forefront of many of our choices, so our
interface was kept fairly simple to make sure that
key elements were visible. Buttons were made
grey to differentiate from other elements, and
have titles associated with them so it is clear what
their function is. Titles with key information were
made larger than other elements. Secondary
functions were hidden so users could focus on
primary tasks. This encourages a more seamless user experience, as it is easier to understand the
core functions when they are clearly apparent. Going hand and hand with the simplicity design
principle, the visibility principle guides users into where they need to go next.

Feedback

Generating feedback for the user was also important,

and we designed Plan It to keep users informed. We have
provided pop-up messages throughout the program, such as
when a user saves a file. When the save button is clicked, a
message appears, letting the user know the file is saved, and
provides a file path. We have kept the location as specific as
possible, so a user can easily go back to find their file. We
have also provided page numbers at the bottom of the party
planning pages, to show users how far along they are in the
planning process. This helps avoid frustration and clearly lays out how long the process will take.

Constraints

We applied constraints to streamline the event planning

process. Applying restrictions ensures that error and confusion is
prevented. Regardless of which experience level stream the user
picks, if the ‘Next’ button is clicked without the required fields
entered, such as budget or estimated guest number, an error
message will appear, letting them know they can’t proceed to the
next page without filling out these fields, saying “You haven’t
finished planning yet! Please complete all fields to proceed!”.
When a user saves their plan, the app is triggered to return to the
home screen. This prevents saving a file twice. In the advanced
stream of the app, where users can create their own plan, if a user
attempts to delete an item from their list that isn’t there, an error
message is triggered. Additionally, if the textbox is empty and the
‘ADD’ button is clicked, another error message is triggered. In the
‘Browse Available Events’ section, if there is only one event in
the list and a user is trying to browse through them, they will get a warning, so they aren’t confused
as to why they are not seeing other events. Finally, we incorporated an error prevention message.
If a user tries to exit and has not saved their plan yet, a confirmation message is shown saying
“You haven’t saved your plan! Are you sure you would like to discard this plan and return to the
homepage?” This message attempts to prevent accidents or errors, so a plan is not trashed without
being saved or shared first.

Consistency

The aesthetic of our app is unified, as we applied the design principle of consistency across
all pages. We have placed the ‘Back’ and ‘Next’ buttons in the same place on each page, and the
planet icon, which takes the user back to the home page, is
always in the same place as well. The consistent graphics
ensure that the same controls are in the same location on all
screens, such as dialog boxes, text inputs and buttons. The same
language is used throughout the app, especially when it comes
to specific terminology, such as differentiation between party
type and party theme. Having the same commands across the
app leads to a sense of predictability for the user, and a
knowledge that similar actions will lead to a similar output. No
matter what stream the user chooses, novice or advanced,
similar pages are displayed (as shown below). The user can put
in the same inputs (date, guests and budget) and can get the same
output of theme, food, drinks, decorations and more. If a user has started as a beginner, there will
be no major problems when advancing to the more experienced stream. Being able to transfer prior
knowledge makes certain that the user can focus on relevant tasks. This all makes our system
usable and learnable because similar concepts are expressed in similar ways. The aesthetic style is
kept the same throughout, making for a more consistent experience.

Beginner Stream Advanced Stream

Affordance

In terms of creating Affordance within our app, we have given hints as to how elements
should be used, such as buttons. The ‘Back’ button is always on the left-hand side, and the ‘Next’
button is always on the right-hand side. This is usually how webpages are designed, so the user
has a hint as to what the button will do, even if the text wasn’t there, as this same format is used
in other digital and physical media. We have kept it simple by providing text boxes, which afford
the user to write a customized block of text and spinners which give the
affordance of a drop-down menu. The properties of these objects are quite
common and standard to many popular websites, so that familiarity gives clues
to the object’s operation. When entering a number of guests for your party,
you are prompted with a number-only keyboard, signalling the app wants a
numerical input. When the app asks for a location, it asks for linguistic input,
signalling your answer should be in words, and not numbers. This is key for
giving the user hints as to what kind of data they should be inputting. In the
‘Create Custom Event’ stream on the ‘Add Items’ page, the ADD buttons are green, and the DEL
buttons are red. In our common knowledge of objects in the real world, as well as virtually, green
signals add, and red usually means exit, or take away. These buttons give a good clue of how
adding and deleting items on your list works. We also used a unified planet on every page to signal
going back to the homepage, as many apps and webpages use this similar idea.

Numerical Input Date Input Word Input

Matching
As Plan It is an app that could potentially be used by people
who are beginners in using technology, it was very important to us
to match the terminology of the system to that of the real world, and
speak the user’s language. This is important when prompting for
input, but even more important when trying to articulate errors or
constraints in pop-up messages. By using simple language, it makes
it clear as to what is expected to finish the planning process.

Simplicity
As we stated earlier, we wanted to promote
simplicity in our app when it comes to functionality and
aesthetic. Common tasks should be reasonably easy to
perform, so we made sure each of the pages of our
interface only provided necessary information, and hid
irrelevant information. You can see this in Plan It’s home
screen, where there are two options provided, and a back
button. There is a small paragraph of text to help the user,
but the buttons are kept at the forefront. Under ‘Choose
From Template’, inputs such Theme could have easily
been placed on the same page as the rest of the inputs
required, but it was given its own page separate from the others so that the page didn’t look as
cluttered.
Help

Plan It also strives to provide help. Our version of catering to many

different users, and meeting them at their experience level, can be shown in
splitting up the planning process into two streams. This ensures that the app
meets the user where they are, and tries to ensure there is not a big learning
curve when interacting with the app. On the home screen, we have provided a
small paragraph, so users understand the difference between these two home
screens by saying “Before you begin… For novice organizers, we recommend
choosing from one of our templates. For more experienced event planners,
Custom events provide more flexibility for the all-too-important details.”
When a user enters one of the streams, a pop-up message says, “Tap the planet
to return home at any time.” This gives the user an easy way to
exit if needed, and provides them with a simple tutorial before they
begin their event planning.

Heuristic Evaluation

We used Nielsen’s Heuristics to identify aspects of our interface that may violate some of
the heuristics we learned about in class. We interviewed three users and gathered insight on what
heuristics our app violated, how severe the issues were, and how they could be fixed. We structured
our questions using the Liekert scale, providing a range of answers to the questions posed: Strongly
Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree and Strongly Disagree.

During this evaluation, we observed Plan It scored quite high in delivering on these
heuristics: matching between the system and the real world in terms of terminology, user control
and freedom, consistency and standards, recognition rather than recall, flexibility and efficiency
of use, and help/documentation. The users gave positive feedback that the app was structured in a
way that was simple to understand. They also observed that they had more control and freedom
because there were back and next buttons to allow them to edit their plan and they could return to
the home screen at any time by clicking on the planet. The users thought the app was flexible and
customizable because you could pick between creating from a template or creating a plan from
scratch, meeting the user at their experience level and ability. Our app was also ranked as being
externally consistent to similar apps, but also visually and functionally consistent internally
between the two different streams, making it easy to learn. Plan It also minimized memory load,
and promoted recognition over recall, by allowing users to back to browse events and showing a
party plan fully after a user had created it, making it easily retrievable and familiar. Finally, users
pointed out that they enjoyed the small tutorial at the beginning of the app, and observed it made
Plan It easier to use.
 However, there were four areas that we discovered needed some work
after our Heuristic Evaluation. The first heuristic violated was under the
category of ‘Error Prevention’. One user that interacted with our app tried to
exit after viewing their party plan without sharing or saving, and afterwards
was confused as to why they couldn’t find their party plan. Because no error
was thrown, it led to confusion in the user. In fact, two of the three users we
interviewed pointed this issue out. In our first draft, we neglected this issue.
This issue was placed at a severity level of 2, because while it may not happen
very frequently, it could lead to major confusion in the user and frustration.
We have fixed this issue in our second and final version of our prototype by
adding a confirmation page when a user tries to go back to the home screen
or exit, saying “You haven’t saved your plan! Are you sure you would like to
discard this plan and return to the homepage?”

Two users also saved their party plan twice accidentally and wished there would have been
something to stop this from happening. This was placed under severity 2, because while it doesn’t
affect the functionality of the app, it is an annoying issue that can be fixed. One of the users
recommended providing an error message, which falls under the ‘Recognize, Diagnose, and
Recover from Errors’ heuristic. The other recommended just going straight back to the homepage
once the plan was saved, which falls under the ‘Error Prevention’ heuristic. We decided to solve
this issue by returning to the homepage after the ‘Save Plan’ button was clicked, to prevent the
error from happening in the first place. This issue was also ranked at severity 2. Other than this,
our app ranked highly under ‘Recognize, Diagnose and Recover from Errors’. The users observed
that our app provided useful error messages that helped them understand an error and provided a
solution.

Before
The first draft version of our high-
fidelity prototype was mostly aesthetic in
design, but when in use, a user pointed
out that units of information did not
match up on one of the planning pages
where users provided input. For example,
the textbox under ‘Party Type’ was a
numerical input textbox, ‘Location’
asked for a date input, and ‘Budget’ asked
for a word input. This led to confusion in
the user, as they could not enter the
correct type of data, and we overlooked
that this mistake made the page look
cluttered. This error violated the
‘Aesthetic and Minimalistic Design’
heuristic. Fortunately, this was only
ranked severity 1 because it was a
cosmetic issue. This issue was fixed in
our final prototype.
After
 The third heuristic violated was under the category of ‘Visibility of System Status’, or
better known as the design principle of feedback. One user pointed out they understood their file
was saved, but didn’t know where, so we added in a location so the file could be retrieved. This
heuristic issue was of severity 2, because it doesn’t necessarily affect the planning process. The
two other users pointed out that they didn’t know how long the planning process would take, so
they didn’t know how much time to commit to it. They also ranked this as severity 2, as it was
more annoying than contributing to the overall functionality. We fixed this issue by placing a page
number at the bottom of the screen (1/3, 2/3, 3/3) so users had an idea of how many planning pages
they had left to go.

Before After

In the process of designing Plan It, our application has become aesthetically pleasing,
practical and helpful. The app not only follows common design principles but is friendly to users
and provides a pleasant event planning experience. Through interviews, observations, and a
heuristic evaluation, we have been able to critique our app in use and develop a result that is
functional and contributes to user needs in a creative way. By providing two streams to users,
either ‘Choose from Template’ or ‘Create Custom Event’, our users can plan a party with full
control or allow our app to help guide their decisions. Plan It will be useful in streamlining the
development of event plans and allow beginners and experts alike to plan a party of their dreams.