THE PROBLEM
Planning shouldn’t feel this hard 😵💫
Coordinating events with loved ones in different cities is often overwhelming. Between mismatched schedules, budget confusion, and scattered communication, what should be fun quickly turns into a frustrating mess. Events address this gap by providing an all-in-one collaborative platform that brings people together before the party even starts.
75%
of surveyed users said scheduling coordination is their biggest challenge
80%
expressed frustration with using fragmented tools that don’t work well together
13K+
TikTok videos “the plans never left the group chat” highlighting the widespread nature of this issue
WHY SOLVE THIS PROBLEM?
Event planning isn’t built for real life 🧠
The market is saturated with professional event platforms or wedding-specific tools. Still, none tailored for casual, small-scale event planning for real people who want to make something fun happen with their favourite people.
Given how common long-distance relationships, remote work, and busy lives are today, there’s a growing need for a joyful, easy-to-use app that supports seamless collaboration, not one that adds more confusion.
PERSONAS
Three types of social planers. One shared struggle.
Whether it’s Jonah managing family events, Julia & Marco co-creating celebrations remotely, or Anya organizing casual hangouts with friends, all three face the same challenge: coordinating social events across distances with fragmented tools and communication gaps.
.
JOURNEY MAPPING
Where planning breaks down
Mapped out feelings of a parent, a student, and a couple planning events apart from each other. This process clarified emotional triggers and mental models.
75%
Juggling multiple tools for scheduling, budgeting, and task delegation
80%
Difficulty maintaining excitement and emotional connection across distance
13K+
A lack of shared visibility into the planning process
These led to my core insight: people don’t just want to plan events, they want to feel together while doing.
These led to my core insight: people don’t just want to plan events, they want to feel together while doing.
CHALLENGE
How might we help families and friends who live apart to effortlessly manage all aspects of event planning while reducing stress and fostering joyful collaboration?
HYPOTHESES
Our bets on what will actually help 💡
A single, centralized tool for scheduling, task management, and budgeting will reduce friction in planning
1.
A single, centralized tool for scheduling, task management, and budgeting will reduce friction in planning
2.
Native iOS patterns and Apple integration will enhance usability and increase user adoption
3.
A soft, friendly visual language will make experience feel emotionally lighter and more approachable
SOLUTION
Events: One app to plan it all 🎉
iOS Native Feel
Designed with Apple’s official Figma kit and SF Pro fonts for a polished, intuitive experience.
Budget Tracker & Cost Splitting
Intuitive interface for entering expenses, viewing group balances, and settling up.
Collaborative Itinerary
A timeline-based layout for organizing event moments, with task assignments.
Task Delegation
Group members can assign and track responsibilities, with status updates provided.
COMPETITVE ANALYSIS
Market Check: The tools existed but the collaboration didn’t 📊
We conducted a competitive analysis of over 10 platforms including Splitwise, Wanderlog, and Evite. While each tool did one thing well, like managing expenses or setting calendar events, none offered a centralized way to collaborate across all aspects of planning. Most were built for individual use, not for shared decision-making. This revealed a clear gap: event planning isn’t just about tools, it’s about togetherness.
ANALOGOUS MODELING
Looking Sideways for Smarter Ideas 👀
We explored apps like Wanderlog, Splitwise, and Tripsy for inspiration. Wanderlog stood out for its clean UX, but its onboarding was too long for quick, casual use. Splitwise was seamless for budgeting, yet offered nothing for scheduling or communication. Tripsy offered an elegant, itinerary-based flow but was tightly focused on travel, not social collaboration. These tools showed us that while fragments of our solution existed, no one had designed a shared space where people could actually plan together. That became our opportunity.
POEMS & POPULAR MEDIA SCAN
What Online Community Reveal About Planning Pain 😅
Analyzed social media posts and cultural moments (like the viral “plans that never left the group chat” trend) to uncover emotional tension around failed plans.
EMPATHY MAPS
Getting Inside Their Heads 🧠
Mapped emotional triggers and needs of three key users: a parent, a student, and a long-distance couple planning events together.
SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS
Let’s Talk About It 🗣️
Participants described planning as “overwhelming” and “confusing who’s doing what”, validating early assumptions and surfacing deeper context.
“Coordinating schedules is the hardest part, especially when people don’t respond to messages or show up late.”
-Participant 1
“It’s always hard getting everyone on the same page. We use multiple apps, like Discord and Google Forms, but it just feels fragmented.”
-Participant 2
“I get overwhelmed when people change plans last minute or don’t communicate properly. It makes me want to cancel the whole thing.”
-Participant 3
ONLINE SURVEY
Let’s Make It Quantifiable 📈
With 20+ responses, I quantified insights:
75%
struggle with scheduling
65%
feel overwhelmed with group planning
80%
want one single platform for everything
TRIANGULATION INSIGHTS
The need is clear: Less noise, more clarity
Cross-referenced findings from user research, visual research and task flow mapping to align my app’s structure to match real user needs and expectations.
SITE MAPPING
A shared space needs a clear structure
Before diving into wireframes, we created a site map to outline the architecture of Events, ensuring every feature had an intuitive home. Based on user priorities from interviews and surveys, we organized the app around five key areas: Tasks, Budget, Itinerary, Calendar and Messaging.
This top-down structure gave us a bird’s-eye view of how users would move between sections, helping us reduce clutter and prioritize ease of access. It also ensured that every tap led somewhere meaningful, setting the foundation for a clean, collaborative, and joyful experience.
WIREFRAMES
Laying the foundation ✏️
Sketching low-fidelity wireframes helped test the skeletal structure of the platform and develop a better understanding for the user flow and information architecture of the app.
MID-FIDELITY PROTOTYPES ITERATIONS
Building structure, reducing bloat
Ticker Scroll Component
Add layers or components to infinitely loop on your page.
Once the architecture was locked in, I transitioned to mid-fidelity designs, designing a modular homepage to ensure clear visual hierarchy and navigation clarity, where Itinerary, Tasks, and Budget needed to be both quickly accessible and visually distinct.
Key decisions to reduce feature bloat: • Removed built-in messaging; instead, integrated Apple iMessage group creation • Removed calendar view; instead, auto-syncs with Apple Calendar • Personalized homepage by allowing event theme colours
HIGH-FIDELITY & UI DESIGN
Designing for joy and clarity
Features: • Collaborative event setup • Shared task assignment with statuses • Real-time budgeting + group settle-up • Timeline-based itinerary • Contextual group chat integration
USER TESTING
What worked, what didn’t, and what surprised us
Ran two usability tests with think-aloud feedback covering flows from event creation to budget management. Users praised the budget breakdown and cost-splitting features but suggested visual adjustments.
Crucially, feedback validated the choice to integrate iMessage and Calendar instead of building separate features. Participants found it reassuring that the app worked with tools they already use, reducing onboarding friction.
ITERATION
Fixing friction, polishing flow
I iterated on navigation and refined the cost-splitting breakdown to match user expectations better.
IMPACT
More than just logistics, it made planning feel GOOD
80% of users expressed preference for the integrated all-in-one approach vs. juggling 3–4 tools
85% said the clean, native feel of the UI made it easier to learn and navigate
User testing revealed significantly improved task comprehension and lower cognitive load compared to reference apps
The final prototype not only solved the logistical pain points, it also made event planning feel joyful and manageable.