The Challenge
Party Proper is a modern luxury sound service and entertainment business in Santa Barbara, CA.
As a newly founded business in a highly saturated DJ/event entertainment market, it was critical that Party Proper’s webpage establish both a rich professional visual design language and crystal clear calls-to-action.
Additionally, the website needed to effectively synthesize both the needs of Party Proper’s target audience and the professional service standards of the business.
UX Research
With these challenges documented, I first performed a competitive analysis report of 7 local competitors to assess market opportunities.
I then conducted a user survey to focus in on the attitudes and needs of prospective clients, event planners, and newlyweds.
After analyzing the data recovered from the user survey, I then conducted a focus group interview by selecting a combination of event directors, newlyweds, and prospective clients to deepen development of core concepts that would be executed for this website.
Both the survey and focus group interview yielded key insights for understanding the psychology of the user and constructing a design philosophy for the product.
Three notable insights were:
1. Who are you? The client wants to both see and know who they are working with. Mostly all event DJ sites lead with pictures of clients they’ve served without bringing attention to who they are and what they do. This creates a sense of unwanted mystery for the client, which deters them from engaging with the site.
2. Get to the point! The sooner a client can be easily directed to a contact/inquiry form, the higher the chance they will contact/inquire.
3. Less is more! Many event DJ sites are outdated and cluttered with all sorts of irrelevant information. This creates undesired navigation strain on the client, which greatly increases the likelihood of disengagement from the site resulting in a loss of business.
After gathering these insights, I wrote user stories highlighting features and tasks that Party Proper’s website should take into account.
Designing the experience
The iterative process took approximately 2.5 weeks and involved extensive usability testing in order to come to a shippable product.
What emerged was a minimal, navigable product that immediately identified the talent, provided a clear opportunity to place booking inquiries, and provided press and review resources.
Sure, it looks good, but does it work?
The success of this project was immediate. Upon the site’s launch, Party Proper began receiving a high volume of inquiries and bookings.
When prompted, the majority of clients referenced the website’s style, layout, and clarity as distinguishing elements for why they chose Party Proper over other competitors.