Solution Overview
To streamline event planning, I designed a website that unifies guest list management, invitation customization, QR code check-ins, and payment handling—empowering organizers to manage everything in one place. Key features include:
Problem Statement: The Coordinator's Coordination Crisis
Event planning isn't inherently complex. But the coordination of planning is.
Event coordinators (wedding planners, corporate event managers) operate across 6-8 disconnected tools simultaneously:
Guest list (spreadsheet or basic tool)
Invitations (design tool or email)
RSVP tracking (Google Forms, separate platform)
Attendance verification (manual check-in or separate app)
Payment processing (separate vendor)
Statistics/reporting (manual compilation)
The systemic problem: No tool treats event coordination as one unified workflow. Each tool solves one dimension perfectly but creates context-switching between them.
Goals & Objectives
Design a user-friendly interface for managing guests and RSVPs.
Enable users to import/export guest data (XLS, XLSX, CSV).
Allow users to send custom invitations and scan event QR codes.
Provide tools to track invitation and attendance statistics.
Let users manage multiple events and payment methods under one account.
Create a flexible invitation card editor with branding options.
Why Existing Platforms Miss the Coordinator
I analyzed two market competitors: Rspify and mAZOOM. Both are well-designed but reveal a critical gap.
Competitor Pattern:
Optimized for attendees (clean invitation experience, easy RSVP)
Ignored coordinator workflow (invitation customization is limited, guest list management is clunky)
Single-event focused (can't manage multiple events with shared infrastructure)
Payment disconnected from planning (separate workflow, separate platform)
Attendance tracking is manual or post-event, not integrated
Why they missed: They designed for the happy path (attendees open invite → click RSVP) while ignoring the coordinator's actual job (manage 10 moving parts simultaneously, catch errors before event day).
The Market Gap: A coordinator needs to see guest status (invited, RSVPed, attended, paid) in one place. Existing tools force them to jump between platforms to piece together the full picture.
Strategic positioning: Rather than optimize for invitee experience, Hayak optimized for coordinator confidence—unified visibility of all dimensions of event coordination.
Research Validation: Understanding Coordinator Workflow
User interviews with event coordinators revealed the real pain points:
Guest list management complexity: Managing RSVPs, custom dietary needs, plus/minus ones requires constant reconciliation across tools
Invitation design friction: Customizing branded invitations in existing tools is either limited or requires design skills
Manual attendance tracking: No integration between guest list and check-in process means coordinator manually verifies attendance against invites
Multi-event coordination: Managing back-to-back events (e.g., wedding ceremony + reception + after-party, or event series) requires redundant setup across platforms
No unified reporting: Coordinator can't answer "how many confirmed guests do I have?" without checking 3 different tools
Critical insight: The problem wasn't individual features—it was distributed context. Coordinators spent 40% of their time piecing together information from disconnected systems instead of actually coordinating.
Strategic Reframe: Event Coordination as a System
This research shifted my framing: "How do we make event coordination a unified system, not a collection of separate tools?"
Rather than adding features, I reframed the problem architecture:
Guest list is the source of truth (invite from here, track RSVPs back here, check attendance against here)
Invitations are communication outputs (customizable templates, sent from the guest list system)
Check-in is live verification (scanner confirms what guest list predicted)
Payments are tagged to guests (linked to guest status, not separate ledger)
Statistics are derived from unified data (not manually compiled)
My Role
Led the end-to-end design process—conducted user research, defined pain points, ideated features, wireframed core flows, and designed the final user interface with usability in mind.
User Persona: The Coordinator's Job
Samar is a wedding planner managing engagement events (multiple days, multiple venues, growing guest list).
Her actual workflow:
Day 1: Create guest list (200 people), send invitations (branded templates)
Days 2-7: Track RSVPs, manage custom requests, monitor payments
Day 8-10: Send reminders to non-RSVPed guests
Day 11: Prepare final headcount, dietary summary, seating chart
Event Day: Check in guests with QR codes, reconcile actual vs. expected attendance
Post-Event: Generate final report (photos, attendance, payment reconciliation)
Design challenge: Support this entire journey in one platform without overwhelming Samar with complexity.
Information Architecture: Unified Visibility
The IA centered on coordinator confidence—making the whole event visible at once.
Dashboard (First Entry Point):
Event overview: Date, location, guest count, RSVP status, payment status, attendance status
Quick actions: Send reminder, check in guests, view guest details
Alerts: Non-RSVPed guests, payment issues, date conflicts
Guest Management (Source of Truth):
Single list: Invited, RSVPed, attended, payment status—all in one view
Custom fields: Dietary needs, plus-ones, seating preferences
Filtering: By status, dietary, table, payment
Invitation Editor (Communication from System):
Branded templates (coordinator brand, not generic)
Auto-populated fields (guest name, event details from guest list)
Customization without design skills (template variations, not from-scratch design)
Check-In (Live Verification):
QR scanner tied to guest list
Shows: Expected guest + actual check-in status
Real-time: Coordinator sees attendance numbers updating live
Reporting (Derived from Data):
Final headcount, dietary breakdown, payment reconciliation
Generated automatically (not manual compilation)
Wireframes
I structured flows around the main tasks:
Dashboard
Guest List Management
Invitation Design Editor
QR Scanner Interface
Statistics and Reporting
Payment Center
Impact: Transforming Event Coordination from Stressful to Coordinated & Impact
Hayak demonstrates a critical insight about coordination tools:
For Event Industry:
Event planners don't need better invitations or RSVPs—they need unified visibility across all dimensions of coordination
Manual reconciliation between tools is where most planning time is actually spent (not in event design)
Multi-event management compounds complexity exponentially (existing tools don't account for this)
Integrated payment tracking changes how coordinators manage vendor logistics
For Coordination Design:
Unified source of truth (guest list) eliminates reconciliation friction across the entire system
Transparency into multiple status dimensions (RSVP, attendance, payment) in one place reduces cognitive load dramatically
Coordinator dashboards should show real-time sync status, not require manual updates
Design simplicity comes from system simplicity—complex workflows become manageable when data is unified
For Design Thinking:
The breakthrough came from shifting focus from "better features" to "better coordination"—the system question, not the feature question
Understanding the coordinator's actual workflow (piecing together info, not designing events) revealed what to optimize
Fragmentation problems can't be solved by better individual tools—they need systems redesign
