Four in a Bed - Personal project
This was a personal project that I worked on for the Channel4 series Four in a Bed. I was watching it with my wife and I thought how the whole process of reviewing guesthouses could be better handled in the show via an app - so I made one!Four in a Bed is a TV series on Channel4 in the UK in which bed & breakfast owners compete to prove their establishments have value for money, by visiting each other's business and deciding the amount they think is best for it. The guests provide feedback for the other establishments via physically writing their comments on a form and then paying (in cash) what they think their stay was worth. The comments are read straightaway but the payment amount is only revealed on the final day of the competition.
I was watching the show with my wife and it struck me how the feedback and payment process could hugely benefit from being an app instead of hand written comments and cash - so I made an app for the show. The thing that stood out to me the most was that each guest had an entire piece of A4 paper with one question on it - “Would you stay here again?” with a Yes/No answer to circle - I thought this was such a waste of paper.
First thing I did was get as much of the brand assets as I could from the Channel4 website - mainly the logo and a few colours. I can usually extract a lot of information from limited assets such as these.
The sign in screen, and then the Venue (Home) screen where the user can view their upcoming stays and provide feedback.
Then I crafted a user flow based on the show. The contestant would receive an account creation invitation, which would allow them access to the app where they can view information about each of the three locations they’re due to stay at. Ultimately the goal of the app is to provide a place where the user can input feedback about each location, after the end of their stay there. The user would submit feedback and then state how much they think their stay was worth - this will, determine the winner. The venue can view the feedback when the guests have departed, but not the payment amount until the final day.
Design-wise, I used the torn paper motif which is on their marketing assets for the header and navigation sections. I also used the text embellishment from the main logo throughout the app as a recurring design feature.
The payment screen, followed by the Feedback section where the user can view all the feedback provided for their venue.
The results section, which is read out on the final day of the competition, which would then also reveal how much each guest paid for their stay, which would then determine the winner of the competition. In the show, the payment amount is taken out of the envelope and slowly counted, so with the above envelope in the app, there could be a fun animation to open the envelope and reveal the payment amount, introducing some surprise and delight.