User Experience Research – Tablelist

While researching the user experience of using the Tablelist App, I first went through the reviews on the Apple app store to look for potential insights. Interestingly, despite being the largest platform offering nightlife table bookings, Tablelist also had the lowest reviews compared with competitors. Most critical reviews of the app were related to the initial welcome-screen users have to get past to use the app which requires providing information including a credit card. Understandably, people were unhappy that they had to give up such personal information before even fully understanding what the app does. In addition, there was a comment describing the overall experience of the app being “shady” or “sketchy”. This is probably due to the first problem I described but I also noticed several other features that make it feel like the app is a cash grab. For example, on the bottom navigation bar, there are five buttons, one of which is essentially an advertisement for their “diamond member” option which costs an expensive twenty-nine dollars per month.

In regard to the actual product differentiation between Tablelist and competitors, the core functions are all similar and include the ability to discover nearby nightlife and book tables or bottle service online. Several comments describe the ability to rack up points and get deals but I had yet to see the feature promoted anywhere on the app and it may be a paid feature. In addition, the competitor apps look almost identical to the app store with another app called “Inlist”, a confusingly similar option.

When conducting my user interview, I chose to specifically use someone that I know could use the app and had experience going to clubs. Focusing on open-ended questions of usability, I first asked questions about what they would use the app for after exploring it for a few minutes. I did this because I think the purpose should be extremely visible from the start and my interviewee should get this from the beginning. The answers I received in regard to purpose/function related questions suggested that the app was meant to be used as a service for finding relevant parties/events nearby. The next series of questions asked how they would use the core function of the app. The core function of Tablelist is to buy tables from clubs and so I tried to get my interviewee to do this while I observed. The first step the user took was to look through the discover function. They clicked around the most exciting-looking clubs before realizing they weren’t in the same city. The next step was to search for clubs in Boston. After looking through several clubs, the user clicked on one and tried to find an option to buy a table. After realizing this didn’t work, they then tried the concierge page with noticeable frustration. This seemed to be the largest pain point as they struggled to write a request. Finally, they typed out a request and waited for a response.

While conducting this interview, I filled out an empathy map of what the user said, thought, did, and felt. Interestingly, it wasn’t what the user said, but what I could infer they felt that led me to an insight while filling out the “felt” section. By following the Neilson Norman Group’s guide to empathy map in which they say “Ask yourself: what worries the user? What does the user get excited about?”, I realized that my user was worried about money. The cost of going out was always a factor when deciding where to go out, and my user was having difficulty finding their answers.