Personalised Event Recommendation. Leveraging what we know about our members to deliver a new feature. Dynamic and curated recommendations that adapt to individual tastes.

The problem

The events programme significantly contributes to the value of the Soho House membership, with 1.9 million bookings made via the app in 2023. Events drive member acquisition, retention, and boost F&B revenue but and we are not fulfilling its potential with less than 50% of members actively booking events. In the 2023 Global Member Survey, 26% ranked event booking as the app's second most important feature, and 21% saw it as needing improvement.

Brand: Soho House

Year: 2024

Responsibility as 1 of 2 designers: Project strategy, end-to-end UX/UI design process, cross-functional team collaboration, C-Suite and stakeholder engagement – presentations and workshops, user and accessibility testing, A/B testing, evolving of the design system, dev handover documentation and support, content team onboarding

Team: Product Designers, Product Managers, Data Analysts, Data Engineers, Content Team, Events Team.

IMPACT

6%

Increase in bookings since the feature launched.

14%

More members booking events for the first time.

8%

Increase in post-booking attendance.

First personalisation feature

For the first time, the app is tailored to each member.

First cross-collaboration working

Partnering with multiple teams to deliver the feature.

Section1: Final Outcome

Four key features to inspire the discovery of events and screenings

Enhancing event discovery with a dynamic recommendation feature at four key touchpoints. Working in collaboration with the data team, the system adapts to individual preferences by ranking events based on stated interests, booking behaviour, and lookalike segments. Our approach ensures the most relevant events are featured while still offering a broad range of options so every member finds something they enjoy.

Feature announcement, onboarding and prompt members to engage and capture interests.

New homepage recommendation carousel and access point to your curated collection of recommendations.

Visual poster and recommendation signposting, inspiration whilst searching the index page.

1. Feature announcement, onboarding and prompt members to engage and capture interests

Upon launch, members are prompted to select interests from 70+ tags across 10 parent themes, which can be updated in their account. This is integrated into the onboarding journey to ensure interests are captured for new members.

2. Recommendation carousel, homepage spotlight

The 'recommended for you' carousel is visual-yet-informative presenting the recommendations in a more impactful display than other carousels on the app. 

3. Curated collection, a personalised space to discover and explore recommendations

This expands the homepage carousel to show up to 20 personalised recommendations in a clean, editorial-style grid, with a link to the full catalogue.

4. Visual poster and recommendation signposting, inspiration whilst searching the index page

Visual posters displayed on index pages slowly cycle through recommendations to capture attention without overbearing. Recommendations are visually tagged for greater visibility.

Section 2: The Design Process

1a/ Defining the opportunity

Synthesising interviews revealed key themes highlighted in the Experience Journey Map: the need for personalisation, better discoverability, inspiration to book, and maximising attendance to create a better experience for all.

How might we...

Re-engage dormant members by sparking an interest to encourage a sense of adventure?
Display events that are prioritised based on the member's interests and other relevant factors?
Ensure members not only discover events that align with their interests but expand their horizons to be pleasantly surprised?
Consider journeys that explicitly and implicitly capture data points to feed the recommendation model, leading to better results?

Member sentiments
“When I first joined I tried to book into events they were always full, so I stopped trying”
“Personalise and market the right events to me and I'll likely go no matter the location”
“If there was a summary of what’s coming up tailored to me that would make me proactive to book”
“I feel like I’m missing out on things that I would have really enjoyed, I just didn’t know about it.”

Current Flows
Aligning with the experience journey map, we outlined the current and potential core flows to identify key touchpoints where the personalisation feature could enhance the user experience to enable us within the concept development.

1b/ Strategy

Design approach and principles. Overarching strategy that ensures alignment with project goals and the fulfillment of user needs.

Enrich, not exclude

Ensuring the journeys are not restricting the wider catalog and other areas of the app.

Disrupt without disrupting

Encouraging member engagement to become a positive, habitual experience.

Inferred whilst open

Inferred models only get you so far. Member-driven interests and continual feedback are core to an authentic approach.

1c/ Considerations

Design considerations with the current and upcoming experiences

Design consistency

The homepage is already carousel-heavy

Visibility and salience 

Using existing components could make the launch go unnoticed.

Checked in and checked out states

New UI needs to compliment both states as each has its own ambient identity.

Brand refresh

To collaborate with the branding team to ensure alignment with the components and assets.

2a/ Ideation and concepts

Concept development: From wireframes to impactful experiences

Working from low-fidelity wireframes, we funnelled concepts through data-driven and collaborative validations, ensuring the interactive experience between each touchpoint of the new recommendation system is considered. This approach ensures the UI is impactful, enhancing the discoverability of the new feature.

2b/ Direction

Establishing alignment. Direction, timelines, and member experience

As part of the ideation process, it was essential to align cross-functional teams on the potential design direction, data-capturing opportunities, and timeline estimates to ensure a cohesive and united approach. By fostering collaboration and clarity early on, teams can establish a unified understanding and a shared direction.

We presented three possible territories with initial concepts and our competitor analysis explorations. These ranged from utilising existing components from the design system to minimise development effort and ensure a timely launch, to a transformative step change involving new components. The aim, to create impactful and expressive visuals more closely aligned with the brand's tone of voice but required greater development effort and longer timeframes. The agreed approach was Route 3: Step Change.

3a/ Iterative refinement - Validating decisions

A/B and user testing

A/B testing: Best-match vs chronological order?

People typically plan their social lives by date first, making date-based ordering more intuitive. While ranking by relevance highlights top-ranked events, it can result in clusters of similar activities. We wanted to understand which is preferable when discovering events that best align with their interests.

Results: Confirmation that date-based ordering led to higher conversions, with members preferring it over relevancy-based ranking whilst discovering recommended events.

Task-based user testing: Uncovering usability issues

Using our prototypes and creating a scenario, we observed how the members completed the task gathering valuable qualitative insights. Uncovering usability issues early on helped us to validate our design decisions.

3b/ Iterative refinement - Accessibility testing

Collaborating with the branding team on their event asset refresh

Working closely and iteratively testing our components' contrast ratios with the event asset refresh concepts to ensure text eligibility with our overlays. With multiple components needing consideration with unique requirements, we created a safe area template for the content team to refer to throughout their development efforts.

4/ Handover process

Supporting implementation, ensuring smooth delivery

Using the handover specification I implemented, the aim is to eliminate any ambiguity between design and development. During sprint refinements, we reviewed the specification document with developers, supported by product managers, to ensure alignment on experience expectations, ticket creation, and estimated timelines.

• Detail - The decision context, including what the component is, why it was designed this way, the prototype, and its positioning relative to other components.
• Component breakdown - The anatomy that makes up the component in relation to the design system, including its states and spacing.
• Animations - To guide intuitive interactions or facilitate navigational actions within a component.
• Display logic - Adaptive, depending on the specific scenario.
• User flows - Ensuring the app behaves as expected and matches the design vision.

Section 3: Areas for improvement

Looking ahead: Post-launch improvements

A personalised, curated space to discover and explore

While binge-watching similar TV shows is enjoyable, attending real-world events requires more effort. After attending, interest in similar events tends to drop temporarily, rising again only after some time has passed.

Recommendation: Work with the data team to temporarily down-weight events with attributes similar to recent bookings and recommend diverse events that remain relevant to the member.

Data capture opportunities

To enhance data-capturing to improve the recommendation model, we are exploring multiple feedback loops.

1. Member feedback: Members can indicate whether a recommendation feels relevant providing valuable insights.
2. Behavioural insights: Tracking the use of specific filters to allow us to suggest adding these as a selected interest.
3. Interest updates: Every few months, members will be prompted to update their interests, keeping recommendations aligned with their preferences.

Let's talk.

© 2024 VENETIA MANUEL