Empathize

Research Plan

At the start of the project I knew it was important to set forth some goals for my research. This helped me to stay on track while performing research. These goals were 1) to determine working patterns in existing ticket buying sites, 2) to learn what drives users who are browsing venue sites to purchase tickets to events, 3) to determine what factors lead to a pleasant ticket buying experience, and 4) to find pain points in the businesses current state of operations. After deciding on the goals of the research I sat down and chose what methods I was going to use to research these. These research methods were:

Secondary Research

1. Market Research

2. Competitor Analysis

Primary Research

1. 1-on-1 Interviews

Market Research

I wanted to learn more about the live music industry and the ticket purchasing process. To do this I went online and utilized search engines to seek out as much information as I could find.

Trends

• Music ticket sales were at $6,859.0 million in the US (2019) & are expected to grow by 6.5% in 2020

• 52% of Americans attend live music shows (because of this America is ranked #1 in the world in live event revenue)

• 30.5% of live music attendees are between the ages of 25-34 yrs old

• Based on music festival demographics the market is 59% male and 41% female

• 70% of hardcore festival goers (6 festivals per year) say they are their friends primary resource for information on live music events.

• Primary reasons attendees prefer to buy tickets online are:

  • Good deals or discounts

  • Convenience

  • Securing tickets before the show is sold out

  • Ability to see information about the show or venue

• For free events 45% of people get tickets at the door

  • 50% of people who reserve tickets to free shows online do not show up to the event

  • For paid shows less than 20% of people buying tickets at the door

• Reasons artists choose venues:

  • 58% said it was because the venue came up when they searched through search engines

  • 34 % said online venue marke places 

  • Both of these reasons were ranked above social media

  • The only reason that  was listed above these two was “word of mouth”

• Pain points artists have expressed in selecting a music venue is:

  • Slow response times from venue

  • a lack of flexibility from venue when it came to decisions

  • not being transparent in terms of rules or costs

  • not giving enough information upfront

Pain Points

• Scalpers purchasing tickets just to resell them at higher prices

• Hefty service fees when purchasing a ticket

• Slow response time from venue when contacted

• Venues not being transparent in terms of rules or costs

Competitor Analysis

With a general idea of the consumer base in the live music industry, I decided it was time to do a competitor analysis. I wanted to utilize this opportunity to study how competitors were utilizing their website to drive transactions. While looking at competitors websites I took note of the things they did well and things that came across as weaknesses. While choosing direct competitors I looked for medium to small music venues in an hour radius. To choose indirect competitors, I looked at a large scale historical venue within an hours drive and Ticketmaster a large scale ticket sales website.

Provisional Personas

Before I started interviewing prospective consumers, I felt it was important to decide what kind of users I wanted to interview. This helped direct the search for people to interview. The provisional personas can be found here.

1-on-1 Interviews

For the interview phase, I really wanted to find out what caused frustration in the average user as they went about the ticket buying experience. I also wanted to learn about motivations and frustrations for artist’s reserving a venue. Unfortunately, due to the limited time allotted for the research phase in the design sprint and the lack of response from previous artists who have performed at the venue, I had to decide to focus on just consumers who have purchased tickets recently. I ended up interviewing 6 users about their previous experiences and pain points. Through this I was able to find some insightful information. The interview transcripts can be viewed here.

Design

Low Fidelity

I decided on this project to create my sketches while also incorporating elements I saw other music venue websites using. Unfortunately, a large majority of music venue websites look very outdated or are extremely barebones. Fortunately, since I initially chose to sketch out my first wireframes, I had the opportunity to see which elements worked and which ones looked outdated.

Medium Fidelity Wireframes

After looking over the decisions I made on my low fidelity wireframes, I decided I need to update some of the elements so the page would look more modern. I wanted the web site to maintain the same high level of functionality while also having the utmost visual appeal.

Responsive Mid Fidelity Wireframes

I wanted to see how these would translate to other formats like tablet and mobile. To do this I created some responsive wireframes of the pages I created. I set a grid to an art board the size of the format I was creating for and moved elements so that they fit well. The responsive wireframes can be seen here.

Prototype

Mid Fidelity Prototype

Using the mid fidelity desktop prototypes I created a prototype. I wanted to be able to test a few things that correlated with the basic function of the sites and some needs that came from the interviews. I focused on the ticket buying experience, signing up for an email newsletter and finding food near the venue. Testing the mid fidelity wireframes gave me the opportunity to see if my designs made sense to users.

Usability Test

Before I started testing users I wanted to lay out a plan. This helped me present the test to users in a way that was easy to understand. I chose these tasks for users to complete because I wanted to make sure it accomplished its core functionality and that usesrs weren’t confused by the new feature. This is the plan that I used in my usability testing. The type of usability tests I chose to run were both in person and remotely moderated, thinking out loud usability tests. I wanted to use the thinking out loud test so I could give users chance to point out anything in the design that did not make sense to them. Due to the corona COVID - 19 Pandemic I was limited in my ability to conduct in person tests, so I performed 6 usability tests overall. 4 of these tests were remote and 2 of these tests were in person. The findings from the test are here.

Affinity Mapping

In order to compile the findings from the usability test, I decided to do an Affinity Map. I felt looking at the patterns that came from the test could show some things that needed to be altered. After sticking all of the sticky notes on the board, I reorganized them into sections so I could find some patterns.

Insights

1. A lot of users were confused about where to find the nearby amenities section

2. Some users misinterpreted what the booking page was intended for.

3. A few users  did not realize you could click on options in the amenities section.

Branding

Since The Laundry Room Venue already had their own logo, I was only responsible for creating the visual direction for them. The Brand Adjectives I worked around were: Cordial, unique, exuberant, zany, professional, easygoing and casual. Using these Brand Adjectives I went to pinterest to find some examples of the visual direction I wanted to use for the venue’s site. I created a mood board that became the example for the Brand style tile I was going to create. The set direction helped me create a cohesive visual direction that fit the brand. All the photos I used were taken at shows at the venue.

UI Kit

I wanted to create a document that would help maintain consistency when forming pages in the future. I created a UI kit so I was able to pull elements off of one document while creating the final wireframes. An additional benefit of this is, after handing off these elements, other developers will have an easier time maintaining the consistent brand look by pulling the elements from this document.

High Fidelity Wireframes

Finally, it was time to add all of the solutions into my wireframes. While doing that I started to add all of the final UI elements. I made some tweaks as everything came together in order to make sure everything worked together well. I ended up changing the amenities section from the experience page to the about us page. Users were split when looking for this feature as to which page it should be on. I ended up choosing the about us page because more users looked there first and most incorrect interactions came from users attempting to click stuff on the about us page.

Final Prototype

Using the Hi Fidelity wireframes I updated my prototype to incorporate the visual elements I added.

Conclusion

Working with a music venue’s website was much more different from clothing website than I expected. From the lack of top tier examples to incorporate into my designs to an entirely new set of user pains, this was a challenge I am glad I undertook. Having loved live music for multiple years, I really enjoyed the opportunity to design and test a website for a music venue.

Next Steps

• Update design based on any more feedback received

• Test the location of the nearby amenities section if time permits

• Hand off to the development team