Who is Billow
Billow is a Seattle-based community thriving on organizing a variety of events that brings people together
Long term goal
Establish a community in Seattle focused on entertainment and leisure activities.
Slogan
Work Hard, Play Harder
THe Problem
Various roadblocks disrupt host and participant user flows, resulting in poor conversion.
Painpoints for host
Repeated Promoting
Hosts spend extra hours copy-and-pasting their promoting material for their event into different group.
Repeated Invitation
Hosts have to manually send group chat invitation to different participant for coordination and communication purpose.
Painpoints for participants
Repeated info-filling
Participants repeatedly enter the same personal information for each event, adding unnecessary steps and lengthening the registration process.
Missed Events
Participants tend to miss important invitations of the party they wish to go.
450+
new registered users two months after launch
50%
increase in total events creatinon.
2 mins
reduction on time spent on registration.
A WeChat Mini-App that provides participants with up-to-date event info while automates the host invitation process
Feature One
Centralized Event Center
It’s community thrives on hosting and organizing a variety of events that brings people together.
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Final Solution
Impacts after launch
Feature Two
In App Event Sharing
It’s community thrives on hosting and organizing a variety of events that brings people together.
Smooth Event Creation.
It’s community thrives on hosting and organizing a variety of events that brings people together.
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Key Challenge
Which is the best solution?
My take: WeChat Mini Program
Billow is a small pre-seed startup with limited resources and tight project deadlines. As a product designer under this pressure, my primary responsibility is to select a platform that maximizes user experience while ensuring timely product delivery.
Option 1
Host on Website
Option 2
Build Mobile App
Option 3
WeChat Mini App
Option 4
Hire add-hoc admins
Strategy
Piggybacking WeChat Ecosystem to
optimize event registration flow
Automatic Info Fetching
Mini-App can pre-fill forms, personalize content, and streamline account-related actions without requiring repetitive data entry. This functionality not only reduces the risk of human error but also saves users valuable time, preventing the frustration that can arise from typing in redundant information.
Create, Share, Participate
within one app
Users can interact with the Mini-App directly within WeChat, which allows for real-time messaging, notifications, and updates in a single interface. This integration reduces friction and ensures that users remain engaged without the distraction of external links or third-party logins.
Design Process
Design Through Iterations, Make It Sharp
Information Architecture
A well-structured information hierarchy, along with both low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes, to guide the design process.
Mid-fi -> High-fi -> Testing
Based on the user flow and info architecture, I sketched the low-fi prototype for concept validation and tested the user flow with 7 stakeholders.
Mid-Fi Wireframe Prototype
Final Wireframe Prototype
Branding
Built branding with
a systematic, replicable method.
Create Mood board
My team and I hosted a workshop where we collaboratively created a moodboard to capture the essence of the Billow app. This final moodboard became the foundation for Billow's branding style.
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Vote for Branding
Once we are satisfied with the mood board, I went up creating three main color palette and let the team member as well as 5 community members to vote the one that they like the most.
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Curate Color Palette
After we chose our primary color, I curated it using a color palette tool to ensure consistency, rather than relying on visual estimates.
Final Color Palette
With that, we developed the final color system. The guideline below details all 90 shades and their corresponding accessible text color values. I also included accessible text colors on a white background for reference.
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LEARning & Reflection
Scrum is efficient.
Scrum's iterative approach allows teams to adjust priorities and project goals as new information or changes arise, ensuring that the product evolves based on feedback and market needs.
Be Mentally Prepared
for Changes.
for Changes.
New WeChat Oversea Usage Policy restricted usage for gathering purpose, which sabotaged our app. But our team quickly switched to another online platform, Wix, and continue the service while building branding for broader marketing purpose
