Putting Tickets into the Hands of Music Fans
My Role
Product Designer (Capstone Project)
Figma, FigJam, Miro, Pen & Paper
Process
Product Designer (Capstone Project)
Figma, FigJam, Miro, Pen & Paper
Buying a concert ticket to a popular artist's show is quite similar to a race. It does not matter how big of a fan you are; you just need fast fingers to get a ticket.
Many fans are frustrated with their current purchasing experience. They have accepted the fact that they are up against bots or scalpers, and will ultimately have to choose between paying a premium on the secondary market or not going at all.
Provide a fair and systematic approach that distributes tickets to music fans, with a focus on shows that are anticipated to sell out instantly.
The Process is Social
Similar sharing and purchasing flow are found across different friend groups
No Resale Tickets
Resale tickets are perceived to be overpriced
Deprioritize Cost for Friends
Users overlook price of ticket if their friend is interested in the event
MUSICMOB
A conceptual app aiming to increase concert attendance by providing a fan-centred environment and a hands-off purchasing flow to the concerts of popular artists
Secondary research showed that problems existed outside of the ticketing app.Based on this article, tickets were limited and sold out by design in order to earn more money through the resale process.
As a solo Designer, not only would I need to provide an experience that puts the user first; I need to provide value to the ticketing industry that is more appealing than the earnings gained from their reselling fees.
To search for pain points, five (5) user interviews were conducted with participants that matched the following requirements from my screener survey:
I needed a detailed understanding of how a user currently goes from initially hearing about a concert, to purchasing a ticket. This information was organized using an Affinity Map.
According to the survey, the biggest roadblock that stopped fans from attending a concert was the cost of a ticket. However, user interviews helped contextualize this data. Although cost was important, users were willing to overlook the price if their friend was also interested in the event.
“If I was going to a concert alone, I would wait for the price to drop. If my friend is also going, I will just buy the ticket.”
Fans perceive resale tickets to be overpriced. If they do not have to pay the premium that comes with resale tickets, fans believe that they got a relatively good deal.
The survey shows that most people made purchases through Ticketmaster or from the Concert Venue’s/Artist’s Website, which are primary sources for tickets.
“Resale ticket prices are always too high.”
“To see if I am getting a good deal, I will compare the price to the retail price”
A similar sharing and purchasing flow can be observed across different friend groups.
Fans share concert details through social media. When purchasing a ticket as a group, one person will complete the purchase and the group will pay back later. Just like how a concert is a social event, so is the process of getting there.
“One person will buy all of the tickets for the group. We will then pay them back later.”
“If you don't send them a link, they won't look it up.”
- Pain point when sharing concert details
To gain the perspective of the end-user, I initially created two user personas: an Avid Concert Goer and a Budget Friendly Fan.
In the end, I decided to focus on the Avid Concert Goer. The Budget Friendly persona heavily emphasized cost, which was beyond my control. I was looking to bring value to fans that were already buying tickets.
The main idea that stuck out to me during ideation was Concert Teams, annotated as “Join team: help coordinate a day to do something”. It was not very detailed at the time, however, this concept expanded into my final concept.
How would Concert Teams help businesses?
With an idea and inspiration in place, it was time to create a sacrificial prototype. I needed to see if my ideas would be understood when placed in front of users.
This was an iterative process. I would complete the wireframes and then go back to user flows when I noticed that something did not work as intended. The “Creating Concert Team Flow” and the “Payment Flow” were especially difficult.
Adding the Concert Teams feature meant that an entire system would have to be built around it. Users would also need to Add Friends, Reserve Seats, Authorize Payment of the Team, and many more.
I wanted the app to mimic the sense of awe and community found at a concert. The app defaults to Dark Mode to emulate the grunge vibe.
With the different states of certain graphics such as Users (attending, pending, decline) and Seat Map (not selected, selected - minority, selected - majority), a design system was created to clarify and centralize information.
Two (2) round of usability testing was completed to produce the final prototype. Many changes were made along the way.
Users understood the general concept of a Concert Team, however, were unsure about the details. Additional information was presented on three (3) onboarding screens that appear upon the user's first interaction with the Concert Team's Feature.
The Concert Team feature was a new concept and users were unlikely to click in. The flow observed during usability testing showed that users would share details when prompted to "Create a Concert Team".
Final designs resulted in moving the Create Team icon near the share button and adding an entry point when Share was clicked.
There was a lack of system feedback once users input their seat and budget preferences. My first design consisted of a slider and interactive map, which limit the amount of information which could be displayed.
The old design was overhauled and changed into detailed radio buttons where interactions would trigger a response from the seat map.
When it was time for users to choose seats, they had a hard time differentiating between recommended and regular seats. There was a lack of emphasis on how the recommended seats were catered to their team.
To create an association, the profile pictures of all the members of the group were added when tickets were sorted by Concert Group.
Although this was a conceptual app, I can see it having a big impact if implemented into current ticketing platforms such as Ticketmaster.
I imagine a reserved section can implement this feature during the presale. This will give Ticketmaster enough user information to price tickets for public sale.
The features that I propose should bring the focus back on giving fans a great concert experience in hopes that they can attend more and more concerts. In this case, both the fans and the companies win.
