Comic cons have grown exponentially in recent years. From intimate events of 100 attendees in the 1970s to over half a million people attending the top five largest conventions annually.
Comic cons provide fans with the opportunity to meet others who share their interests, interact with their favorite content creators, receive sneak peeks of upcoming content, and purchase merchandise. Over the years, comic cons have changed considerably and are now more widely inclusive to different kinds of fandoms such as gaming, anime, or a little bit of everything. The term “comic con” today is a catch-all term for any pop-culture convention.
All over the comic con community are blogs, articles, and social posts with a common pattern: trying to help others “survive” the comic con experience. Why is this?
Comic con attendees tend to be overlooked users with niche challenges of geek culture and therefore lack tools that can make their con planning easier.
if we look at travel planning in general, 89% of people said planning a trip is stressful due to the prep and research needed leading up to the trip. On top of this trip “survival” phenomenon, people who attend comic cons also tend to feel like “outsiders” due to the historical taboos of geek culture. As a nerd myself, I have observed the unique stressors of con travelers.
The Solution:
Create a travel planning app focused on geek conventions to help attendees of comic cons streamline their planning process, reduce stress, and increase the fun of prepping.
Research Goal: Do comic con attendees face unique challenges when planning their con trip? If so, what are the challenges?
While my hypothesis is based on assumptions and generalized travel statistics, the lack of accessible data on comic cons and planning ironically speaks volumes about this potential untapped market and unmet needs. Therefore, I wanted to speak directly with users and find out from them if this problem truly exists and to what extent.
Secondary Research - Competitor Analysis
I conducted a market analysis to find both direct and indirect competitors that con attendees could potentially be currently using, such as various trip-planning products.
All trip planning products currently on the market have NO features specific for con planning and adhere to generalist trip planning to compensate for a variety of trip types.
Primary Research - User Interviews
I spoke to 8 comic con veterans to discover challenges they may face when planning a con trip.
🗨️ Why do you attend comic cons?
“It’s just pure fun. It’s like going to summer camp again and seeing my friends that I haven’t seen all winter.” - Joe, 35
“I’d say my friends, but what I really mean is my con family. I cherish the couple hours I get to spend with people I met at cons that I only get to see once a year.” - Jared, 30
🗨️ How do you feel about your con planning process?
“So many things can go wrong, the worst is the “con crunch.” Your reservations like hotel and flights will always send you reminders, but the things you need to time manage yourself like prep and cosplay are really difficult.” - Adonis, 26
It feels like organized chaos. It starts off being this organized spreadsheet and checklist and I'm a big fan of sticky notes. But yeah, then the night before it's always a mad scramble and I'm just throwing things into boxes.” - Joe, 35
🗨️ What tools do you currently use to plan your cons?
“I've got the Galaxy notes so I'll just pull out the stylus and write it. For my actual cosplay planning, I'll usually do a written list. And it has to be on my paper. Otherwise, it doesn't work. A list for packing is usually separate, I use ADHD planners.” - Jen, 31
“A lot of it is social media. So I use a lot of Facebook and Instagram to figure out who's going that I really, really care about.” - Jackii, 27
“I used to use an app called Cosplanner for cosplay planning, but it was complicated and had too many features. I now stick mostly to a notepad for general planning. Then for cosplay and room-sharing things, I’ll put together a spreadsheet, then communicate what everyone can bring on Facebook Messenger.” - Jared, 30
🗨️ What do you value most when you plan your con trips?
“I'm a very plan oriented person and like being the group planner. And so I'm usually the one who is encouraging others to get on things. But the plan relies on other people at some point to get things done.” - Ashley, 32
“Planning ahead - the con planning process usually starts a year in advance just to brainstorm and coordinate what everyone else wants to do, especially if you’re planning group cosplay or activities.” -Jared, 30
⚖️
Research Trade-Offs: Ideally, if time constraints allowed, I would have conducted contextual inquiries. After listening to users, it is clear that they often encounter unexpected obstacles in their plans, which would be insightful to observe.
Synthesizing these responses through affinity mapping revealed two key themes shared by all participants.
Key Theme #1: Communication and Community
100% of participantsexpressed communication and collaboration as a defining pain point.
Key Theme #2: Customization and Consolidation
100% of participantsuse multiple planning tools with a mix of physical and digital products and desired one centralized planning tool.
Personas
Meet Lily, the Group Collaborator Protagonist!
🗯️“I love my con-family and collaborating with them to create a planning process we can pitch in and benefit from.”
🏆
Goals:
Share information with her con group in a digestible way
Delegate tasks efficiently
Getting the con group on the same page with planning
✨
Motivations:
Enjoys the trip more when everyone works together
Thrives in social settings and is excited to see distant friends
Having control alleviates anxiety
💢
Pains:
Unreliable or disorganized friends in the con group
Difficulties getting a large group to assemble and agree on things
Meet Daron, the Con Veteran Protagonist!
🗯️“Going to cons feels like summer camp all over again. I love getting to indulge in nerd culture with like-minded people and letting go of everyday life for a bit.”
🏆
Goals:
Plans con a year in advance for optimal budgeting and booking
pre-con responsibilities such as home care are set in advance
Budgeting and reducing costs as much as possible
✨
Motivations:
Thrives in nerd culture and party atmosphere
Looks for networking opportunities
Having a fixed vacation to look forward to every year
💢
Pains:
On a tight budget due to frequent con trips
Trouble sticking to their desired planning timeline
How Might We make con trip planning easier and fun for con attendees like Lily and Daron?
I defined the project goals before diving into feature ideation to ensure the user goals are met throughout my brainstorming process, as well as setting realistic business goals, technical constraints, and shared goals among each group.
Why do comic con geeks matter? 🧐
Nerds have superpowers for economic growth! Local and international comic cons contribute billions of dollars to their host city’s economies.
Feature Set - Card Sorting Study
I asked 5 con veterans to sort potential features into categories through a hybrid, unmoderated card sort to get a better sense of their mental models.
Trip Plans
56% participant agreement on cards sorted
Support
45% participant agreement on cards sorted
Community
44% participant agreement on cards sorted
Home
38% participant agreement on cards sorted
Account
38% participant agreement on cards sorted
Groups
💡 participant-created category
Seven cards sorted
Similarity Matrix of card sort results.
⚖️
Card Sort Summary and Trade-Offs:
There are no highly jarring disagreements or agreements, with a pattern leaning towards most actions occurring in the trip planning category.
Although aiming for a higher agreement rate than 56% would be ideal, time constraints on the project, as well as qualitative feedback gathered from card sort participants, confirmed that I had enough data to understand user mental models for feature ideation.
“Some of the topics, especially the ones I put in the ‘Trips’ category, felt like they should be in further buckets” - Card sort feedback from Optimal Sort data
Card sorting showed that con attendees prefer general categories in multiple places, but also want clear and minimal information when completing tasks. I created a site map with simple primary levels and deep sub-levels to avoid overwhelming users.
Site map.
User Flows
Lily and Daron encounter many moving parts when planning cons, which are represented by the various alternative paths for user actions when completing a customizable task.
Based on interview and card sorting data, Lily and Daron are likely to spend most of their time in the trip planning category. Therefore, I focused on sketching a variety of solutions for this primary level.
Low-Fidelity wireframe sketches for creating a new con trip.
Mid-Fidelity Wireframing
While under time constraints, I did a quick five-second test with three con attendees to gather insights on how they felt about a key planning page.
Although a small sample size, all participants said the key planning screen gives them a sense of freedom and customization without feeling like they must adhere to a linear process.
“I love that everything is on one page rather than being a step-by-step process. I have the freedom to add whatever I need whenever.”- Jackii, 27
Mid-Fidelity wireframes for “Creating a New Con Trip” screens.
Half the users I interviewed commented that con event schedulers have bad UI and look dated.
Prepcon gives users a fun and nostalgic feel, while resembling modern gaming and geek-culture UI with bright color contrasts and dark themes.
Moodboard.
Prepcon Style Guide.
UI Library
Buttons
I made all primary Calls to Action (CTAs) a bright hot pink to pass the squint test and highlight main user actions, backed by research. For secondary buttons, bright contrasting strokes are used to complement the bright pink when used in pairings, providing the user with an alternate path.
Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary buttons with labeled states.
Cards
Tackling the cards was a fun challenge. I took a mobile-first approach to display all necessary information for users and highlight their input once they filled in the following cards related to planning their trip. Moving to desktop, I enhanced the cards by creating previewsof suggestions specific to the user's planned trip.
Responsive cards for adding and creating inputs to the user’s con trip.
Forms and Drop-Downs
To enable customization, I needed to create various forms and drop-down components for responsive design. I also implemented drop-downs and auto-fill based on users’ previous actions to reduce the time they spend on creating their trip plan.
Responsive forms and drop-downs with labeled states.
I used the components created by the branded UI library to evolve the mid-fidelity wireframes into the first version of high-fidelity wireframes. These will be used for user testing.
Gamification and exploration of cons with important details for planning.
See friends fulfill their tasks and get in touch with your con groups.
💯 Usability Testing
Let’s see if we saved the day by conducting usability tests!
I conducted usability testing on two task flows to identify areas of confusion, possible errors, and see if the product meets the users con planning goals and eases their stressors.
Methodology:
Five participants. Four have attended at least one con in the last two years, and one has not attended a con but would like to in the near future
Moderated, remote, and recorded with Fathom on Zoom.
Task Flow Test #1: Create a New Con Trip
🗨️ You are looking to set up a getaway with friends. You know the convention and location. How would you set that up?
“I love that it tells you about the theme and type of con. This helps me think about what I would want to cosplay and bring.” - Megan, 30
Task Flow Test #2: Create a Con Friend Group
🗨️ You have friends going on this getaway whom you would like to communicate and share information with. How would you establish that communication?
“I expect to see who else is in this community, it feels like there are a lot of potential features to connect with people you met at a con but didn’t exchange contacts, or distinguish which friend does what.” Jared, 30
Usability Test Results
Success Metrics 🏆
At least 4 out of 5 userssuccessfully completed the tasks
Users each had 2 or fewermoments of confusion
Users had 2 or fewererrors that they recovered from
Users gave the tool anoverall usability rating of 3 out of 5 or higher
Key Results 📝
All users successfully completed all tasks ✔️
3 out of 5 users had three moments of confusion 💡
All users had 1 or no errors and recovered from them ✔️
All users gave a usability rating of 4 out of 5 ✔️
Key Observations and Improvements ❗
All users experienced initial and prolonged confusion navigating task flow #2 ❗
All users implied navigational changes or features that could be moved to other areas ❗
All users exhibited behavioral patterns that indicated a lack of affordances. Specifically, overlooking secondary buttons and questioning if their actions saved ❗
Bonus Usability Test and Trade-Offs: I conducted an additional usability test after two task flow iterations and the user did not experience any confusion. The improvements solved the problem. Although I could not conduct more tests due to time constraints, I am glad that I conducted at least one additional test instead of relying solely on assumptions.
🦸🏽 Final Prototype
Prepcon values geeky friendships to make planning cons easy and fun. After all, cons are an adventure full of moving parts and memories to share with your partners in crime.
All the details of your con trip in one place.
Gamification and exploration of cons with important details for planning.
Stay in touch with your community and see your friends progress on their tasks.
1. Identifying a Niche Product Opportunity in the Marketplace.
Conducting secondary research was challenging because there are no direct competitors or reliable data on comic cons that is easily accessible. This also reinforces the issue of an underrepresented market. However, I observed that niche users are enthusiastic about participating in a product they feel has been needed for a while.
2. Involving Primary and Secondary Users Throughout the Iteration Process.
Talking solely to con veterans during preliminary research was necessary, but involving both con veterans and users interested in cons brought diverse insights to ensure the satisfaction of primary and secondary users during the iteration process.
Continuing to Evolve Prepcon 🔄:
1. Flesh out the Prepcon Community
Participants during user testing were eager to see how the community aspect would work, especially if it meant being able to find someone they met at a con but did not exchange socials.
2. Tailored Gamification for Newbies and Veterans
During user testing, participants loved the gamification aspect. However, an excellent point was raised that many users may be con veterans and would like to easily input their history to avoid starting over.
3. Pursue Business Viability
The con community has overwhelmingly provided positive feedback for this MVP. There is an overall enthusiasm for new products that help con attendees. Prepcon could help conventions increase attendance, bring tourism to local economies, and make the lives of con attendees easier.
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