Primary Feature Designs with Repli

Image shows 3 phones. The left phone displays the guest list feature for Repli with a pie chart depicting guest responses. Below are options to sort responses. The center phone is backwards. The right phone displays the homepage with countdown.

You’re Invited!

The Opportunity:

Being surrounded by loved ones is something you should look forward to, not dread. While newly engaged couples are excited to share their love with their family, they dread the organization process. Repli is a digital reservation tracking app with a deep understanding of how stressful and exhausting it can be to manage large guest lists with a partner, especially when it comes to accommodating dietary restrictions and juggling extra or unanticipated guests. Their own experience in planning a wedding is the driving inspiration for this project.

As of 2022, the wedding industry is worth $70 billion dollars, so it makes sense that there are several websites and apps already available to users. However, many of the most important features, such as meal tracking, plus ones, and co-host logins, are locked behind paywalls or are limited in function. Additionally, these sites only offer a few of these features to users, but no single site offers every feature.

Let’s Celebrate!

The Solution:

Repli’s digital reservation tracking app aims to ease the mental fatigue of the invitation process. During my user interviews, I identified several areas of opportunity, but given the limited time of the project, had to limit myself improving the visual experience of the app, and designing a few key features.

After a competitive analysis across multiple brands, I gathered the most useful features in one app, improving their functions and reducing the mental fatigue of organizing guests and their dietary needs.

Solo Project

My Roles:

Project Manager

UX Designer

UX Researcher

Tools:

Figma

Figjam

Procreate

Google Suite

Zoom

Project Length: 2 weeks

Methods:

Directed Storytelling Interviews

Usability Testing

Surveys

Competitive Analysis

Wireframes

User Journey Map

Kano Analysis

Personas

User Flows

Informational Architecture

Join Us

Pre-existing Wireframes

I used Repli’s existing wireframes combined with directed storytelling interviews to give my project direction. Along with designing the primary features, I knew I wanted to expand upon the registration process in order to comply with best usability practices.

My interviews also gave me a few ideas for additional features users may find useful. With this direction in mind, I began the design process with several hand-sketched lo-fi wireframes seen below.

Lo-Fi Wireframes

  • Sketch of Guest Profile features on a phone screen. Guest profile reads: John Dorian, MD and displays example demographics. At the bottom are Party details

    Guest Profile

  • Sketch of Meal Tracking feature. A phone screen displays a pie chart depicting guest responses. Below are options to sort responses and example profiles.

    Meal Tracking

  • Sketch of a phone screen displaying a Registry feature with a drop down feature to select available registry options.

    Registry

  • Sketch of a Party feature. A phone screen displays two example guests and example text reading: Thank you, your response has been received.

    Party Profile

  • Sketch of a seating party feature. The wedding party table sits at the top of the page, while 8 round tables and chairs sit on the rest of the screen.

    Seating Chart

  • Sketch of a calendar feature. Phone screen displays a calendar on top, with upcoming example tasks below.

    Calendar

The Favor of Your Reply is Requested

Streamlining Guest Management:

Although many tools already exist to assist couples in managing their guest lists, most apps lack the ability to add guests to parties. When the option is available, the experience is less than satisfactory. In the existing feature, the couple is forced to assign a head of party, through which all contact will be made. This is handy for guests with children, however it adds an additional step of communication when the party consists of adults.

With Repli, users can add guests to parties and have the option to assign a head of party, although it is not required. Users also have the ability to sort and filter guests by side of the family and invitation status.

Guest Management Screens

  • Guest List: All Guests

  • Guest Management: Sort by Family

  • Party Details

  • Guest Profile

  • Home: New Responses

Your Meal is on Us

Improving Meal Management:

During interviews, users expressed frustration and worry over managing dietary needs. Existing programs are limited in their ability to sort and filter guests by their meal selection. Currently, users keep a secondary list in order to manage these needs, increasing the amount of effort required to manage guests as a whole.

I designed the meal tracker to look similar to the guest management feature in order to maintain consistency, and gave users the ability to sort guests by meal. The pie chart gives users quick access to guest’s needs, while the guest list provides more detailed information, eliminating the need to keep a separate list.

“In 2015–2018, 17.1% of U.S. adults aged 20 and over were on a special diet on a given day.”

— Center for Disease Control

Tying the Knot

Adding a Co-Host:

Getting married is difficult enough, but one of the biggest challenges is coordinating the guest list between two individuals. Traditionally, marriage is the joining of two families, and both individuals in the couple will want to add loved ones. Without individual logins, couples have to remember a shared password, or one user will have to take on the extra labor of adding their fiancé’s family.

One of the primary features of Repli, the co-host feature is set up within the registration process. With this feature, each user is able to log in with individual passwords from separate devices to add their own guests, no longer burdening their fiancé with adding their side of the family. Adding a co-host, as well as the rest of the registration process, has been broken into as few questions on the page as possible, per the Nielsen Norman Group’s recommendations.

Registration Process

  • Co-Host Login

  • Progress Bar

  • One Question Per Page

  • Import Guest List

  • Manually Entering Guests

We’re Hitched!

Throughout my interviews, one thing became increasingly clear: couples didn’t struggle to communicate between each other, but they did have a difficult time coordinating their wedding parties for important events such as dress fittings and dinner rehearsals.

I felt a single place for wedding-specific events would help users organize their party as well as their guests. The calendar feature allows users to send automated reminders to their party for important dates and tasks, removing the burden of keeping the wedding party on track from the users. Important events would populate on the home page for easy access.

During my competitive analysis, I realized there were very limited options for a seating chart feature, which would allow for further organization of guests. I was disappointed that I was unable to further research on the feature due to the length of the project, however I was able to include it a kano analysis where 6 out of 6 participants were very interested in an interactive seating chart.

The seating chart feature would allow users to tap and add guests to seats, or drag seats from one table to another, eliminating the stress of a paper chart and messy post-it notes.

Challenges and Flex Features

6 out of 6 participants in a Kano analysis rated the Seating Chart Feature as something they would like to see included in the app.

Sharing the Joy

Moving the Project Forward

With the short length of the project, worked within Repli’s existing color palette, expanding where necessary, however I feel the project would benefit from testing with users to determine their feelings on the visual design. I would also recommend expanding upon the Party Feature, delving deeper into the ability to sort and organize guests based on users needs. Finally, given the positive response from users, I would recommend further development on the Seating Chart feature, which would further allow users to further organize their guests all within the same app.

Happily Ever After

Conclusion

While getting married is something one should look forward to, engaged couples find it overwhelming to co-manage a large guest list with meal selections. Weddings are stressful enough without worrying about organizing loved ones and keeping them fed. During this project, I helped relieve the burden from couples of working with multiple tools to gather their loved ones by giving them the ability to sort and filter their guests as well as their meals, allowing users to refocus their energy where it belongs: on each other.