BookIt
BookIt aims to quickly and easily connect actors with professional acting coaches.
Finding an acting coach can be an intimate experience. Scheduling a last minute coach can be near impossible if you don’t already know someone, let alone finding someone in your price range who is reputable. This was a passion project I embarked on to help the fellow actors in my industry.
ROLE
User Researcher
Visual Design
Prototyping
Testing
TIMEFRAME
Jan- May 2022
Video walkthrough of BookIt.
Problem Statement
Actors need a way to book affordable last minute coaching sessions with knowledgeable and seasoned industry coaches because they want to get better at their craft, produce high quality work, and book more jobs.
83.1%
Of actors seek assistance from fellow actors
$145 hr
Coaching sessions can cost up to $145 an hour
N/A
There is no way to know if a coach is legitimate
There is nothing on the market that centralizes this information, leaving actors blindly investing hundreds of dollars into an hour-long session with someone they do not know.
Goal
To create an app that allows actors to search, chat, and book affordable sessions with verified acting coaches.
Design Process
Competitive Analysis
This market is very niche and has proven to have few existing competitors that have a responsive web-app for actors and coaches. There are two known platforms:
Need a Reader
We Audition
These apps specifically help actors find audition readers – not coaches.
User Survey & Interviews
An online survey was conducted with 32 participants ranging from 24 - 47 years old. After, three participants were interviewed remotely. The goal was to discover:
Testing Insights
Seek Guidance
Finding Coaches
Need Help with Audition
Willingness to use an app
Lack of money and trust came up in all interviews
Affinity Mapping
After synthesizing the raw data of the interviewed participants the key take-aways were:
Classes and coaching sessions are expensive
People want to see a coach profile to get an idea of who they are
People want to see testimonies
It is difficult to find legitimate teachers and there is a fear of being scammed
To get a better understanding of the prospective users, three persona archetypes based on the user research and affinity mapping were created.
User Personas
User Journey & User Flow
Taking the user research a step further, three user journeys and user flows were created to get a better idea of the mindset and scenarios each user would be in while interacting with the app.
Wireframes
Based upon all the research and flows created thus far, low- and mid-fidelity wireframes were designed for usability testing.
LOW-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
MIDFIDELITY WIREFRAMES
Usability Testing Insight
To evaluate the learnability of new users interacting with the interface of BookIt, six people were asked to participate in a round of usability testing. These participates noted:
Style Guide
The brand logo typeface is Playfair Display. This font is classic with a modern feeling. It’s paired with Poppins, a clean and professional geometric sans serif typeface. Poppins should be the prominent font used.
Mockups
Incorporating the feedback from the usability test, a few screens were updated and the final mockups were completed.
Next Steps
Should this project be pursued further, another round of usability testing would need to be conducted to refine the UI based upon user feedback. The success measurement of BookIt would be determined by usage rate. If at least two coaching sessions were booked through the app, we’ll know it is a success.
Although BookIt is not currently planned to launch (yet), every single usability participant said the same thing:
“I wish this was a real app.”
This simple statement highlights both the need for this product and that the current design is well on its way to fulfilling that need.
