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Designing collaborative wedding planning
Planning a wedding can feel like a full-time job. Our user research revealed just how overwhelming it becomes — especially when couples are navigating dozens of decisions, undefined roles, budget uncertainties, and a lack of support.
Disclaimer:
We developed and tested an interactive MVP with real users. Due to confidentiality, detailed designs and test results cannot be shared at this stage. Insights presented here are anonymized and generalized.
We started this project with a hypothesis: that couples struggle most with finding and managing wedding vendors. Our concept focused on offering a reliable marketplace with booking features and curated service lists.
But as we began talking to potential users, our direction radically shifted. What couples actually needed was not a better vendor list but emotional clarity, a sense of control, and support in making hundreds of personal decisions together.
We followed a classic UX process, but let research guide every pivot and priority.
We examined the existing wedding tech landscape, identifying gaps in existing tools:
Through in-depth interviews with recently married and engaged individuals, we explored their planning journeys.
To manage large volumes of qualitative data, I created a custom GPT that allowed our team to query interview transcripts and reference synthesis notes in seconds, saving time and improving consistency during concept development.
We clustered insights to find repeating pain points.
Surprisingly, the vendor search was rarely the bottleneck:
“I never really had a clear picture of what was happening when or everything that had to happen.” – F.
At this point, we decided to shift our concept from a vendor directory to a smart, collaborative planning companion. Instead of helping couples find services, we would help them plan together, with less stress, more structure, and a clear overview.
“It felt like project management. But when it worked, it gave us peace.” – O.
We mapped emotional highs and lows from engagement to wedding day. This helped us pinpoint key stress phases and uncover opportunity areas where a digital tool could reduce anxiety.
We wrote prioritized user stories to frame key features. These stories later shaped our usability test scenarios and informed our design priorities.
“As a bride, I want a shared checklist with my partner, so I can feel supported and stay in sync.”
We analyzed user pains and gains to define the most relevant product values — from clarity and overview to task sharing and emotional reassurance. This became the foundation for our MVP requirements.
After translating research insights into product requirements, we built a clickable MVP and conducted usability testing with our target group. While detailed outcomes are confidential, the tests confirmed core assumptions and guided the next iteration.
Designing an effortless way to pass on kids’ things
Most parents know the pile of outgrown kids’ clothes, toys, and other stuff in the basement. In Switzerland, where many families can afford to buy new, these piles often end up in the trash. Selling or donating takes too long, yet throwing things away feels wrong: parents feel guilty knowing that perfectly usable items add to waste and overconsumption.
Disclaimer:
Kloop is a student project created as part of the Google UX Design Professional Certificate.
The given task was to design an app for buying and selling secondhand children’s clothes.
Before diving into design, I explored how parents in Switzerland already buy, sell, or recycle kids’ items. I compared popular resale platforms, donation options, and recycling programs.
Summary of key tools and their main limitations:
Is it possible to design a recycling system that feels effortless and rewarding for busy parents?
I led the research process to understand why “keeping things in the loop” so often fails in practice. Why do parents who care deeply about sustainability still end up throwing usable kids’ things away or storing them in the basement?
I conducted three interviews with parents living in Switzerland, each representing a different lifestyle and different goals in dealing with secondhand items for children:
Parent 1: J.
She deeply values sustainability and tries to reuse or repair everything. Without a car, even giving things away can be challenging, and she often stores unused clothes in the basement for lack of better options.
“I try to avoid throwing things away unless they’re really broken. A lot of things stay in the basement because I don’t know what else to do with them.” – J.
Parents 2: M. & G.
They buy and receive from friends many secondhand items because of shared values of sustainability and thrift. Yet their home and basement are cluttered: they rarely sell or donate because they lack time, even though they dislike waste.
“If I find something good secondhand, I take it right away. You never know if you’ll see it again. Especially kids’ and sports gear, because the boys keep growing.” – M.
Parent 3:
She cares about sustainability but prioritizes quality: she buys and sells only high-quality secondhand items, saying cheaper ones aren’t worth the effort or the child’s demand. Items of lower value are typically discarded rather than reused.
“I only sell things I’d still buy myself. My daughter sometimes sells her toys at school markets for pocket money. The rest I just give away or throw away if nobody wants it” – S.
My initial assumption was simple: parents need better resale tools.
The interviews revealed that parents rarely make decisions based on money alone. Their real motivations are waste reduction, decluttering, and ease:
they want to declutter without guilt, feel that things go to good use, and avoid wasting time.
“I’ve seen in Africa how the market is flooded with donated clothes.” – M.
Many parents believed they were acting sustainably, but their recent actions told a different story. When the potential financial reward was too small or the process too time-consuming, they chose the most convenient solution even if it conflicted with their environmental values.
“Sometimes the effort just isn’t worth it.” – J.
To better understand these frictions firsthand, I turned the lens on myself. As a mother using the same platforms, I started documenting my own experiences in a diary for one month every time I bought or sold a secondhand children’s item.
Patterns from the Diary
This self-observation reinforced the interviews: circular behavior is impractical in daily life.
“In Switzerland, reuse is neither practical nor social.” – J.
These patterns revealed that “keeping things in the loop” depends less on available tools and more on culture, motivation, and convenience. However, the current systems make sustainable behavior harder, not easier.
I defined user groups and problem statements based on behavior and motivations observed during research.
Problem statement: They need an effortless way to keep kids’ things in use because they want to avoid waste, but there is no big demand for secondhand items.
Problem statement: They need a quick and low-effort way to declutter responsibly because they have no time to pass on outgrown items, and existing systems are complicated and time-consuming.
Problem statement: They need a curated and reliable way to pass on good items because they want to maintain quality circulation without wasting time on low-value exchanges.
To better understand where circular behavior fails in practice, I mapped four user journeys based on my research.
Scenario: A mother wants to sell outgrown toys that clutter her child’s room.
Task 1:
Takes photos and posts items in a local WhatsApp group.
Pain points:
Opportunities: Simplify listing creation and separate private and selling communication.
Task 2:
Receives a few messages from potential buyers, but they stop replying.
Pain points:
Opportunities: Introduce confirmation or reservation functions to prevent ghosting; add response-time indicators, verified-seller options, and seller/buyer ratings with rewards.
Task 3:
Posts the same items on Tutti for free, but gets no response.
Pain points:
Opportunities: Create a pool of requests and match items automatically with demand.
Task 4:
Moves toys to the basement while waiting for replies.
Pain points:
Opportunities: Provide easy “give-away / donate / recycle” alternatives to keep items in use.
Scenario: A father searches for a specific toy his child wants.
Task 1:
Checks WhatsApp, Facebook, Tutti, and Ricardo for the item.
Pain points:
Opportunities: Centralize search or aggregate listings from multiple sources; provide automatic listings with standardized information.
Task 2:
Finds a listing, but the seller doesn’t reply for days.
Pain points:
Opportunities: Add response-time indicators, verified-seller options, and ratings with rewards.
Task 3:
Finds another listing, picks it up, and pays. At home, discovers missing parts and throws the toy away.
Pain points:
Opportunities: Enable safe payments and secure pickups in public spaces such as parcel lockers.
Task 4:
Buys a new toy instead.
Pain points:
Opportunities: Integrate secondhand options directly into mainstream online shopping platforms.
Scenario: A family wants to clear their children’s room of outgrown clothes.
Task 1:
Sorts items into good, very good, and bad condition.
Pain points:
Opportunities: Offer simple guidance or digital support for sorting decisions, with recycle and donation options.
Task 2:
Donates good items to boxes; throws away damaged ones.
Pain points:
Opportunities: Provide transparency and confirmation of reuse impact.
Task 3:
Gives the best pieces to a neighbor.
Pain points:
Opportunities: Expand trusted local exchange circles to more families.
Scenario: Parents of two hockey-playing kids buy used equipment whenever they see good deals.
Task 1:
Visit yard sales and Börsen events; buy multiple pairs of skates.
Pain points:
Opportunities: Provide inventory tracking, need estimates, or reminders of existing stock.
Task 2:
Store unused equipment in the basement “for later.”
Pain points:
Opportunities: Provide easy inventory tools or community sharing options for sports gear; integrate resale opportunities into the buying process.
To move from research to ideation, I translated the key pain points into “How Might We” questions.