BarBook

BarBook is an online booking platform designed for bartenders to host both online lessons and book private events. For my senior project at SFSU, I worked as the sole UX designer during the Fall of 2020 to create a solution to COVID-19 shutting down bars and leaving many bartenders in need of a platform to remain employed.I conducted user research to better understand how the bar industry would shift in response to COVID and uncover further problems to solve.

Role

UX Designer

Timeline

10/01/2020 - 12/30/2020

Tools

Figma, Miro, Adobe Photoshop

Exploring the problem

During the beginning of the COVID-19 shutdowns, nearly 50% of small businesses in San Francisco were shut down. Bartenders were left searching for an alternate source of income. My goal for this project was to create a platform where users can book bartenders for both online experiences and private events.

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Conversational Interviews

To start, I needed to gather data about how bartenders adjusted to the shift in structure, how they made a living, and how COVID would shape the future of bartending. Conversational interviews were a great way to collect rich stories and perspectives about individual decisions and uncover any pain-points my users may have.

Thematic Analysis

I decided to analyze the conversations and categorize them into themes through a card sorting exercise. It was very useful to refer back to the thematic items and themes during the design process.

Prototype

Design Goals

After conducting and analyzing my interviews, I was able to summarize a few findings in which I would design around.

One important finding during my user interviews was that bartenders will often educate their guests while making their drink.
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1. Integrate an online presence and provide bartenders an alternate source of income.‍
2. Provide an easy way for patrons to book bartenders
3. Provide a COVID-friendly environment
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Profile Selection

Users looking to hire a bartender can look through a catalogue of all available bartenders. Filters are available to help users find a bartender for their specific needs

Bartender Profile

Users can view the bartenders profile before making the decision to book.

On this page, users can view future classes that the bartender will be offering and can choose to sign up for the classes.

Users can also choose to book the bartender for a private event.

Booking Flow

For the booking flow, I chose to incorporate a progress indicator to inform the user where they are while filling out the booking form.

The calendar was designed to allow users to select an available date.

Confirmation Page

A summary page is given at the end of the booking process to highlight important information before the user pays.

Design System

For Barbook's design system, Rufina was chosen to as the heading to give a sense of elegance. The color palette was created to create a feeling of class and importance.

Figma Prototype

Test

Calendar

While attempting to select a date, users couldn't tell what the outlined date and the blue and the red dates were trying to convey. They were also confused by the grayed out dates. One user mentioned, "why are some of the future dates grayed out, but the dates in the past aren't?"

The new design emphasizes the dates that are not available by staying grey and including a strike through line. The red dot indicates the date that the user selected

Certain language was hard to understand for some users

In another usability test, one user mentioned that they were confused by the language of the user information form. In order to better communicate this to the users, I chose to add text that read "Your Information" and I added corners to the rounded edges because it better communicated a text box.

Conclusion

Through this project, I learned the value and importance of the role of research in a project. Defining my users helped better inform me when making my design decisions. For the next steps of this project, I would have done another round of usability testing, created prototypes for desktop/tablet sizes, and I would even be interested in implementing this into an actual website service.

View on Behance

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