Landing page of Wedding Spot

Wedding Spot (content audit)

Cvent · April/May 2022

Wedding Spot is a platform used by couples and wedding planners to source wedding venues. It also gives vendors high visibility within a niche industry.

My Role

- Content auditor
- Strategist

Why a Content Audit?

‍In completing small tasks, I recognized some inconsistencies in terminology. A product designer was also doing design explorations for a feature from which an audit was beneficial. Because the product itself was relatively small, a full content audit alongside a user flow seemed appropriate.
A 2 by 3 grid of top destination wedding locations, from Mexico to the Caribbean Islands.
Destination call-out on Wedding Spot

Content Design Strategy

  • Implement the ORCA methodology to identify content objects, relationships, CTAs, and attributes.
  • Identify inconsistencies in terms between screens
  • Identify areas for improvement, and document recommendations for long-term product strategy

What is ORCA? It's a methodology within the Object Oriented UX philosophy evangelized by Sophia Prater, and provides a design framework of thinking in objects-first rather than actions-first. Read more about it at ooux.com
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Mapping content types

Using the Objects - Relationships - CTAs - Attributes framework, I first analyzed Wedding Spot's public-facing and back-end as both a couple/planner user and venue user. This allowed me to:
  • Identify content patterns across the product
  • Group like content types in a coherent way that made sense for the user
  • Better map a user's workflow and relationships from screen to screen
Blue, yellow, green, and pink dots mark different content types on the Wedding Spot homepage. The dots represent relationships to the larger product narrative.
Example of a content run-through (Figjam). Each dot marks the type of content is on the page using the ORCA framework. Blue dots represent objects and instances. Green dots represent CTAs. Pink and yellow dots represent attributes. The numerical diamonds are purely annotation markers.
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Mapping the narrative flow

This may not seem any different from a regular user flow, however, by using the colors from ORCA, we can begin to see how an object relates to other objects, CTAs, and attributes, and how this impacts the overall experience for various user groups.

Coupling the user flow with ORCA markers gave us a clearer picture of what a user was engaging with on any given screen, and allowed us to reassess content in a way that emphasized like-object groupings to avoid potential confusion by users. For example, we were able to identify noun objects mixed with CTAs which led us to rethink how that part of the design could be improved to clearly be all noun objects or all CTAs.
A zoomed-out view of a user flow for Wedding Spot, built in Figjam.
Zoomed-out view of a narrative (or user) flow (Figjam)
A action flow built in Figjam
Snippet of ORCA sequence (Figjam). Blues identify objects and instances, greens are CTAs. Arrows show direction of movement between the two.
Semi-table synthesis of all objects identified during a content audit for Wedding Spot. The words are divided according to color - Green, Blue, Pink, Yellow.
Snippet of ORCA, bucketed (Figjam).
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A content map that links different dropdown menus to different parts of a form.
Mapping menu content in form fields (Figjam).

Competitor audit

One of the last pieces of the audit was competitor analysis. After auditing Wedding Spot, I did an audit of major competitors, and made notes on similarities and differences using the ORCA method. This and the audit combined offered us great insight for drafting enhancements and UX recommendations to improve Wedding Spot in the future.
Competitor analysis
View of side-by-side competitor analysis of platform homepages (Figjam).

What I Learned

I had just learned about OOUX and ORCA, so my application of the framework was in its infancy. I doubted whether I was applying the methodology correctly but over the course of practicing ORCA and continuing to learn about it, I realized that the method is not strict in its application. Since then, I've continued to guide my colleagues in variations of using OOUX and ORCA in their design work from outlining search filters to preparing for a card sort session.

The audit was also one of my first projects in which I did a deep dive into looking at content and how it's been designed with the visuals. What I took away from this project was the importance content plays in design. That is obvious and may be cliché, however, it's one thing to know that content is important. It's another thing to practice designing with content, and taking a thoughtful and holistic view of a product that analyzes coherence of narrative, information architecture, and cognitive consistencies.