Explore how Guild Row launched a custom mobile-friendly app to streamline memberships and event booking—balancing digital ease with real-world connection and less screen time.
Guild Row is a community-based, hands-on making/crafting space focused on bringing people together and unleashing their creativity.
On average Americans spend 10 hours and 39 minutes consuming on-screen media each day. Guild Row is hoping to bring back the craft of making things by hand, learning something new, meeting new people, and creating lasting memories. Guild Row was in need of an app to not only showcase their events, but also allow people to sign up for memberships and register for events they are interested in attending.
We kicked off the project by meeting with all the Guild Row stakeholders to get a clear picture of their vision for Guild Row. This discussion helped us understand the 3 different types of events they were planning on hosting (open studios, workshops, and curated experiences), each of which would each require us to think through slightly different user flows. We also gained a lot of insight on how they were hoping to use their CRM, which would ultimately help drive how we would build the app.
When it came to designing this web application, we certainly empathize with Guild Row’s desire to reduce people’s screen time, so we were able guide the product in a way that would support that mission. One approach was to make the user experience as straightforward for the user as possible by collecting only the essential data and thinking through the search/filter capabilities to help member’s find relevant events. We were also mindful not to include features like in-app member-to-member messaging or message boards that would potentially encourage extra screen time.
We began the wireframing process by sketching out the different flows users would need to take in order to register for a membership and then ultimately purchase tickets to various events. After a bit of research and iteration we landed on a user experience that would make it easy for users to interact with the application.
When it came to visual design we worked with their existing brand (logo, color palette, typography) to design a UI that would showcase their unique brand. We did this by creating custom icons that would complement the logo and pairing their brand colors and fonts to work with the full color event imagery.
To power the membership engagement engine, we partnered with PeopleVine – a robust CRM platform with functionality specifically catered to co-working spaces. Using PeopleVine’s API, we built a completely custom user experience for new and prospective members, optimized for mobile. This enabled us to leverage the powerful suite of out-of-the-box administration tools of PeopleVine for the GuildRow team and also keep a consistent digital experience that was more “on-brand” with Guild Row and its other digital presence assets.
“The LaunchPad team quickly became our go-to technology partners. Their ability to be flexible and collaborative was crucial in helping us remain focused on construction of our facility. We’re excited to be on-boarding our founding members using this app in alignment with our facility opening.”—Mike Healy, CEO of Guild Row
With Guild Row’s flagship location opening later this year in Chicago, they can start using the app to sign up members as they wait for construction to be completed.
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