Planit

USER RESEARCH
UX/UI DESIGN
CLASSROOM PROJECT
6 WEEKS

Ten million weddings a year.Almost none run through a structured planner.

India hosts an estimated 10 million weddings a year, most of them spread across three to five separate functions. It is one of the country’s largest categories of household spending, roughly ₹11 lakh crore annually and almost none of it passes through a professional organiser.

The gap is filled by the host: a family member sourcing vendors through referrals, negotiating over WhatsApp, and coordinating fifteen suppliers on the day with no shared source of truth.

A wedding reception hall filled with guests under chandelier light

Hosts have no trustworthy way to source and vet vendors, and no single place to coordinate them once booked.

Every part of the job lives somewhere else. Vendors are found on Instagram and through referrals. Quotes arrive as WhatsApp voice notes. Budgets live in a Notes app or a diary. Confirmations are verbal. Nothing is comparable, nothing is auditable, and nothing is in one place.

The cost lands in three places: money, through charges that surface only after booking; time, through the follow-up calls it takes to hold fifteen vendors to a schedule; and risk, because on the day itself there is no concrete documented version of the plan that everyone is working from.

Target Audience

A crowd gathered at an evening celebration

Individual hosts and family organisers in urban India; coming from middle and upper-middle income backgrounds running weddings, personal celebrations, college events, small-scale corporate events and community gatherings. The person who ends up running the event because it is their family’s/office’s event, usually alongside a full-time job, usually for the first time.

I. Primary Research

What type of events do our target audience host?
Nearly two thirds are weddings or family functions, the highest-stakes category and the one a host is least able to walk away from.
Wedding or family-related function
63.4%
Personal Celebration
12.2%
Corporate events
12.2%
Community or religious gathering
9.8%
College events
2.4%
Family events and weddings are the top priority to solve for. Highest spend, highest stakes, and the one event a host cannot walk away from.
How often do they host events with 50+ guests?
Around three quarters host at this scale once a year or less. Nobody gets good at this; whatever was learned last time is a year stale.
Once every 1–2 years
29.3%
Once a year
24.4%
Never
24.4%
More than 3 times a year
12.2%
2–3 times a year
9.8%
Every host is effectively a first-timer, so the product has to carry the expertise they do not have, while making the app easy to use.
What type of vendor do they usually prefer?
Over two thirds prefer small, local vendors; the same vendors with no website, no published rates and no reviews beyond word of mouth.
Small-scale / local vendor
68.3%
No preference
22%
Large / well-established
9.8%
Personal service is the draw, so the platform has to bring small local vendors online, not replace them with bigger ones.

II. Empathy Map & User Persona

Empathy map

SAYS

“We need one single platform for everything. The final budget far exceeds the initial one.”
“Why wasn’t this extra charge in the initial payment breakup?”
“I wish I could see verified reviews and a proper portfolio before hiring them.”
“The client/committee keeps changing their mind about what they want.”

THINKS

“Did I confirm that detail with the vendor? Was it on WhatsApp or email?”
“Why isn’t there an easier way to do this? I’m wasting so much energy just coordinating.”
“If this goes wrong it will be a disaster. I’m responsible for everyone’s experience.”
“I hope this vendor is as professional as their Instagram looks.”

DOES

Spends significant time making follow-up calls and sending messages.
Acts as the single point of contact for all problems on the event day.
Firefights last-minute issues like vendor delays, technical glitches or power supply problems.
Manually tracks expenses in a diary with no real-time overview of the budget.

FEELS

Overwhelmed by the sheer number of tasks and vendors to manage.
Stressed about the responsibility of ensuring the event is a success.
Frustrated with the inefficiency, lack of transparency and poor communication.
Disappointed that they cannot relax and enjoy an event they spent months planning.

User persona

Khushi Sonawane

Age 27 · HR Manager at a corporate office

Pune, Maharashtra, India

“If this goes wrong, it’s a disaster. I’m responsible for everyone’s experience. I just wish there was one easier way to manage it all.”

Khushi is the dependable organiser who works full time. Right now she’s planning her sister’s wedding, single-handedly juggling vendors, budgets and timelines while carrying the pressure of making sure the day goes perfectly, alongside her hectic work schedule.

GOALS

Run the entire event from one single platform.
Keep the final budget in line with the initial estimate.
Book trusted vendors with verified reviews and portfolios.
Coordinate vendors and tasks without endless follow-ups.

NEEDS

Verified vendor reviews and portfolios before booking.
A transparent, itemised payment breakup with no hidden charges.
One place to confirm and track every vendor detail.
A real-time view of the budget as costs change.

FRUSTRATIONS

Overwhelmed by the number of tasks and vendors to manage.
Budgets overshoot; extra charges surface late.
Poor transparency and communication with vendors.
Tracking expenses by hand, with no live overview.

MOTIVATIONS

Making sure the event succeeds and everyone enjoys it.
Being able to relax and enjoy the event she planned.
Looking organised and dependable to family and clients.

III. User Journey Map

Stage	User Actions	Touchpoints	Thoughts & Feelings	Pain Points	Opportunities
Need Event	Realizes a family or corporate event needs planning	Personal calendar, email, colleagues / friends	“I need this to be smooth and impressive”	Feeling overwhelmed	A platform to consolidate planning
Find Vendors	Searches for caterers, decorators, venues	Google, Instagram, WhatsApp, referrals	“Which vendors are reliable?”	Scattered info, unclear trust	Centralized vendor database with reviews
Compare Vendors & Budget	Shortlists vendors, checks prices	Calls, messages, Excel / Notes app	“Will this fit my budget?”	Hidden costs, unclear terms	Transparent pricing, budget calculator
Confirm Bookings	Negotiates, sends advance payments	Calls, WhatsApp, email	“I hope they confirm on time”	Delays in confirmation, no real-time tracking	Real-time booking & payment tracking
Coordinate & Communicate	Manages multiple vendors	WhatsApp groups, calls, emails	“Who said what?” / Stressed	Fragmented communication, repeated follow-ups	Unified chat & notification system
Event Day	Oversees event execution	On-site coordination, calls	“I just want this to go smoothly” / Anxious	Vendor delays, timeline issues	Live event dashboard, buffer scheduling
Post Event	Reviews, pays remaining amounts	WhatsApp, bank transfers	“Was everything worth it?”	Manual tracking of payments, feedback not recorded	Automated invoices, review system

IV. Pain Points

Communication is scattered across channels

Vendor conversations live in WhatsApp threads, phone calls and email at once. Nothing is searchable, nothing is attached to the event, and every unanswered question becomes another follow-up call.

Payments and feedback are tracked by hand, or not at all

Advances go out over UPI with no record against the booking. What is paid, part-paid and outstanding lives in the host’s head. After the event nothing is captured, so the next host starts from zero too.

Nothing confirms in real time

A booking is confirmed when a vendor says so on a call. There is no state a host can look at and trust, which is why the anxiety never lets up.

V. My Key Contribution: Dashboard Design

Calendar and Events
Guest List
Task List
Budget and Expenses

I designed the event dashboard: the screen a host lands on once vendors are booked. The research showed that booking isn’t the hard part. What hurts is everything after it: tracking payments, chasing tasks and keeping dates straight across fifteen vendors. The dashboard puts all of that behind one event card and four tabs, so nothing lives in a chat thread or a diary.

Budget and Expenses

Initial budget and current spend sit side by side, and every vendor shows “Fully paid”, “Partially paid” or “Payment due”. Hosts can see what they still owe without reconstructing it from UPI history.

Task List

Tasks carry a priority and a status, and can be filtered by assignee. The host can hand work to family members and see what’s stuck, instead of being the single point of contact for everything.

Calendar and Events

Every booked activity becomes a timed entry with a venue and a short brief, plus a countdown (“in 15 days”). Hosts see what’s coming next without scrolling back through chats.

Guest List

One searchable list replaces the spreadsheet or notebook most hosts keep on the side. It sits next to budget and tasks because guest count drives catering, venue and decor costs.

VI. Information Architecture

Login / Sign UpEmail · Google · Phone

Home
- Create your own Event
- Event Creation Processtype · location · dates · guests · budget · moodboard
- Vendor Marketplacesearch · All / Food / Decor / Catering · ratings
- Vendor Profileservices · experience · previous work
- Chatmessages · advance payment
- CategoriesWeddings · Concerts · Corporate · Birthday
Dashboard
- My Eventsevent cards · task progress
- Event Detailper-event workspace
- Budgetinitial vs expenses · paid / partial / due
- Taskspriority · status · assignee
- Calendaractivities · schedule · reminders
- Guestsguest list
Messages
- ConversationsAll · Vendors · Support
- Chat Threadreal-time · file sharing
- In-chat Paymentsadvance request → Pay
Profile
- My Profileevents hosted · joined date
- Past Events · Connections
- Become a Vendor
- Settingsaccount · privacy · get help
- Refer a Vendor
- Legal · Log out

Introducing

A single platform that carries an event from first idea to final payment.

Planit centralises vendor discovery, vetting, booking and day-of coordination; replacing Instagram searches, WhatsApp chats and hand-kept budgets with one managed workflow.

VII. Primary Task Flow

01Signing in opens the home screen: top vendors and services, event templates, and an entry point to build an event from scratch.
02The event creation process: event type, location and dates entered against the host’s own requirements.
03Step two lets the user add a Pinterest moodboard for a more curated vendor search, alongside guests, budget and event name.
04Plan your services: venue, food and other services, each one optional. The host browses vendors for each, or marks it as one they’ll arrange themselves.
05Opening a vendor shows location, years of experience, the services they provide and their previous work.
06Messaging handles the enquiry and the advance payment request; Pay hands off to the host’s own payment service.

VIII. High Fidelity Screens

Functional Prototype

Conclusion

Planit addresses a process that is fragmented by default: multiple vendors, scattered communication channels, and payment tracking that lives in the host’s head. Centralising discovery, communication and payments into one platform gives hosts a way to compare verified vendors, track bookings and payments in one place, and hold a timeline everyone can see.

A phone home screen with the Planit app icon in place

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