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Dialo Diop.

PERFORMING AND LIVE ARTS RESEARCH

Live arts are currently suffering 

Only four years ago, theaters were selling out and attendance was at a high. Now, many theaters struggle to reach 80% attendance. The issue of lack of attendance has only been highlighted by COVID.This decline can be seen from regional theaters to Broadway, and from local orchestras to grand opera houses, performing arts organizations are reporting persistent — and worrisome — drops in attendance. I stumbled upon this quote from The New York Times:
 
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"In order to combat this decline, it's our responsibility to bring attention back to the performing arts. This can be done through social media and they need to be featured on event booking applications"

My Role

Tools used

  • Solo Student Project

  • Figma, Invision, Photoshop

Timeline

  • Feburary 2023 - May 2023 

PROBLEM

Booking apps are complex and have limited event variety.

As a regular social event attender. I use different event booking apps frequently. However, many event booking apps have confusing user interfaces, making it difficult for users to find and book events. Also, there's limited event variety. Many apps are limited in terms
of the types and variety of events they offer.

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

The competition lacked event variety.

While keeping multiple concerns in mind, I analyzed the 4 most popular event booking apps. I found that the majority of them lacked different types of event options. Mainly providing either sporting events or concert events. This gave me a chance to provide a resolution to a problem.

USER INTERVIEWS

My interviewees had similar expectations and opinions.

THE MAIN INSIGHT

Based on trends in my affinity map, I noticed how students wanted different types of events involving broadway shows, art galas and
museums. They also wanted a simple, straight forward app to use and they want to see friends using the app as well and send them events.

None of the previous apps my interviewees used had
variety, usability and a sense of community.

Ticketmaster

Seatgeek

Stubhub

Vivid Seats

I wanted to hear the opinions of other individuals in the community. I conducted interviews with 8 students that are regular event attenders like myself. I asked them some of  the questions below to find trends on what users like and dislike as well as expectations they have for booking apps.

1.) What types of events are you most interested in attending?

2.) How often do you attend new events?

3.) Do you have any complaints about event booking apps that you use?

4.) What features and information are essential for users when considering which events to attend?

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RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

THE FINAL SCREENS

The Final Product 

CONCLUSION + LESSONS LEARNED

What I’d do differently next time.

This was my longest-ever UX project!  Though the final product looks great, I’m immensely grateful to have been through an entire UX process so I can see what it’s actually like. On that note, a few things I’ve learned:

  1.  Feedback is crucial.  From noticing mistakes in my UI to uncovering more foundational UX problems in my app, I’m thankful to have constantly asked for feedback from my subjects and my mentor.

  2.  Better time management for the main features.  I noticed that was spending a long period of time on minor aspects of the app, taking away from the main features that would benefit users the most. Since I had a time constraint for this project, I realized later on that the minor features had to wait.

Thank you for viewing :) 🎸

WIREFRAME TESTING + IMPROVEMENTS 

2 major improvements in my design after user testing.

Based on various feedback from 8 other peers + mentor feedback, I continually iterated my design over the span of 2 weeks- with Major improvements:

See friends interests and opinions

  • Events people are planning to go to can allows users to find things they have in common with others.

  • People also have the right and opportunity to voice their opinions on events.

More event details

  • Based on my mentor's feedback my homepage needed more details.

  • It needed that sense of community and relationship on the front page as well. 

After making some quick sketches of what the app could look like, I was finally able to move into prototyping. I utilized those students I used in my user testing in order to get first impressions of what using the app is like.

1ST ROUND OF WIREFRAME TESTING 

After my quick sketches I went into low-fidelity prototyping.

I used the Crazy 8’s technique in my initial design
exploration.

There were so many features that I wanted to have included within the app. However, I was unsure on how I wanted the layout of
my application to look. I struggled to find a balance between booking events as well as involving the social media aspect. 
To get higher level design ideas out quickly without worrying much about the design patterns, I chose to follow the Crazy 8's technique. 
I timed myself and spent 1 minute per wireframe. After the first session I tried the techniqueagain for the other features .

IDEATION

THE COLLEGE STUDENT PERSONA

User Story

Hello! I'm June. I'm 20 years old and studying computer science at University of California, Irvine. I've been doing great in my classes and about every other weekend I enjoy going out with my friends. We love watching college basketball and baseball. However, I have a passion for broadway musicals and art shows. It's challenging because I have to use multiple apps in order to attend these different types of events. There's got to be an easier way :(

Goals

  • Discover an app that offers multiple event options

  • Meet new people with similar interests

Frustrations

  • Difficulty navigating booking apps 

  • Apps only offering one type of event

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