Davis After Dark
View another version of our case study on Dribble.
Overview
Davis After Dark was created as a project within Design Interactive’s Spring 2024 Cohort. Design Interactive is a student-run UX organization at UC Davis that is working to give more opportunities in human-centered design to students. Each cohort team was given a prompt and a 6-week time period to finish their project before presenting to a panel of judges.
Goal
Design an app that caters to Davis residents’ varying definitions of nightlife by emphasizing personalization and convenience.
My Role
Cohort UI/UX Designer - During research, my main focuses was conducting the user survey and user interviews, and synthesizing the results. I worked alongside another teammate on the home page from mid-fi through the hi-fi stages. I also contributed a significant amount to final design system, and helped create our main cow logo.
Team
1 PM, 4 Designers
Timeline
April - June 2024
Award
Audience Choice
Research
Research Goals | Research Methods |
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Pictured above: Us thinking really hard about our research goals.
Competitive Analysis
Eventbrite is the most used event app, while Poppin is the most popular in Davis specifically.
Key takeaway: Users like to be given options to personalize their experience without being overwhelmed. Personalization can come in the form of app features (filtering options, saving events for later, etc), and advertising a wide variety of events.
User Survey
We received 61 respondents from Davis residents between the ages of 18 and 60 years of age. Here were our most prominent findings:
Rating nightlife in Davis | Finding nightlife events | Nightlife preferences |
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54% rated it a 3 out of 5 | 86% through friends | 88% prefer dinner with friends |
These results drastically shifted our goals, especially the statistic on nightlife preferences. We went into the project assuming most Davis residents wanted to do “typical” nightlife activities (parties, clubbing), but just didn't have a centralized platform to discover these events. However, we were quickly proven wrong.
Key Takeaway: Instead of taking an advertising approach like we initially thought we would have to do, our research showed that it would be best to cater to the diverse community and range of preferences present in Davis.
User Interviews
We conducted user interviews of a wide range of Davis "nightlife goers" to better understand our users' needs. I took charge of creating and refining the interview outline, and was the main interviewer in our study.
Key takeaway: Users want to meet new people from similar communities/personalities to go out with. Emphasized the demand for a nightlife app that addresses the varying needs in Davis.
User Personas
Based on our overall research results, we created two user personas to understand the goals of our potential users. We wanted to highlight the different nightlife preferences we found in Davis residents, and delve into how these preferences would change their individual goals.
Michael represents our more outgoing users that prefer frat parties and DJ events. He wants to discover interesting events that happen outside his usual circle.
Nara is a little more introverted and loves smaller outings, but also wants to meet more people at bigger parties.
Research Insights
Here were the key takeaways from all our research, and how they directly address our initial research goals. We used these points to guide us through the rest of our project.
What do Davis residents' consider nightlife? | How do people currently feel about the nightlife scene in Davis? | How do people in Davis usually find upcoming events? |
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Define
After determining our research insights, we decided to use our findings to refocus our project's goals with a "how might we" statement.
How might we simplify the process of discovering nightlife events, while also prioritizing the diverse community present in Davis?
Ideation
We began making solution sketches to address each pain points we discovered while doing research.
Lack of Personalization | Lack of Centralization | Lack of Community |
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Mid-fi
We took our sketches and began solidifying our main screens and their features.
I worked alongside one other designer on the main features of the homepage and event page. Personalization was the most repeated theme from our research, which we emphasized by offering users five different filters. We also made sure to keep the event page detailed, yet simple to navigate.
Mid-fi Usability Testing
We conducted a round of usability testing to determine what we did well, and what needed improvement.
Good | Constructive |
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Hi-fi & Final Prototypes
Design System
Going into hi-fi, we considered ways we could incorporate more "Davis-like" themes into our app in order to stand out amongst other apps.
We decided to add characters that are assigned to users based on results from the onboarding quiz! We wanted them to encapsulate Davis culture, and also reflect the two main audiences we found in our research.
The first is DJ Moo-dy, who is outgoing and likes to party, and represents Davis' unofficial cow mascot.
Cool Cat Cheeto is more laid back and enjoys a chill night with friends. Cheeto is an actual cat that has become a celebrity on the UC Davis campus!
As for the overall design system, we went with a darker theme with purple as the main accent to give off a nighttime feel.
There was a point during hi-fi where we had to completely redo our design system because it was too visually overstimulating. I helped conceptualize and rework many of the components of our finalized design system. I also helped redesign our DJ Moo-dy mascot from its original look to better match our new simpler and cleaner design!
Final Prototypes
Onboarding/Personality Quiz
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Choosing Filters
| Drop down and calendar view to filter by date |  General filter button to sort by distance, price, following, and popularity |
Looking at an Event Page
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Profile
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Chat & Adding Friends
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Pictured above: Last minute grind session, submitting before our 11:59pm deadline!
Pictured above: Presentation night (and winning Audience Choice!)
Reflection
Challenges | Next Steps |
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Personal Reflection
This was the first fully-fledged UI/UX design project I had ever worked on. I learned so much from working on Davis After Dark, and I definitely wouldn’t have the confidence I have as a UI/UX designer now without it (shoutout Design Interactive at UC Davis). The entire Davis After Dark team are now great friends (shoutout Aggy, Kristen, and Kano), and we’ve all seen each other grow so much as both designers and people! This project will always be very dear to my heart <3