Partiful is a mobile app designed for creating and sharing party invitations with friends. Hosts are able to plan an event quickly with a fun page crafted for their event. Guests are able to be invited on a number of platforms, and coordination happens conveniently through text blasts.
This brief critique uses Norman’s Design Principles and focuses on the Partiful app version 1.36.7 as of February 2025.
Initial Log in
The image above displays what the first interactions with the app are, logging in and the homepage. The ‘Get Started’ button signifies and informs the user that pressing this button will lead to a new page.
The user is then redirected to the next page, the second image, where prompted to enter their phone number. The box where the number can be entered acts as a signifier and the keyboard informs that this section affords only numbers. The app does not afford a typical username and password, it only affords a phone number for logging into the app.
The homepage features a small navigation bar at the bottom consisting of three pages to navigate, the home page on the left, creating a new invite in the center, and your profile on the right. There is a feedback mechanism that the bar uses to indicate to the user which part of the application they are on, by highlighting the corresponding icon on the bar. There is quite a bit of blank visual space under the event section horizontal side scroll, leaving most of the page feeling unfilled. Alternatively filling this space with a vertical scroll would fill the space better.
There are two main ways to interact with partiful: as a host or as a guest.
Hosting an Event
Hosts are able to share their invites anywhere, email, texts, Instagram, Whatsapp, and more. The inclusivity allows the user to not limit the guests to only other partiful users.
Hosts are able to communicate to guests through text blasts, a text message sent to the list of invites. After sending a text blast there is feedback within the app that the text has been sent to your guests, a drop down notification is displayed. However, the experience still feels a little clunky. I would suggest sending the text to the host’s number for consistency between the guest’s and the host’s experience with the text. It feels odd that the hosts receive one type of feedback, but the guests receive a different one.
There is no way to customize the auto reminders feature, even though the rectangular design appears that it can afford being clicked on and potentially edited, it cannot. The switch indicates that it can afford being on or off – nothing more. Redesigning this section so the design doesn’t mimic the editable text blast rectangle below would help with the discoverability avoid confusion.
Attending an Event
After being invited to an event, guests are able to respond to the invitation through an RSVP. The RSVP screen leans into the natural mapping – going, maybe, and can’t go and aligned in that order. Going and Can’t go are typically thought of as opposite answers, with maybe in the middle of that scale. This leans into Norman’s idea of knowledge of the world as well.
As a guest, I am able to view the guest list for an event I have been invited to. I am able to see who RSVP’d as going and who RSVP’d as maybe, but not who RSVP’d as not going. One improvement would be to add a column of “not going”. Without this, I am unable to determine who of my friends has already been invited and indicated they cannot attend.
Conclusion
Partiful describes itself as “fun modern invites in just one click”. While the app has room for improvements, the experience of creating a partiful invite is just that – fun. The easy and intuitive design allows for a quick way to create cute invitations to guests. Between designing the poster, writing the perfect description, and customizing the effects, sometimes creating the partiful invite is so fun it almost becomes an event itself in my house, simply because the experience is so joyful.