Role: Research, UX/UI & Strategy
Timeline: Jan - Oct 2019
Tools: Sketch, Marvel, Invision, Trello, Typeform, MindMeister, Uxpressia.
No budget either deadlines
Project version initially for Barcelona, could be scalable globally
Spotting the problem
How to meet new people with the same music taste as me?
We know can find partners for almost everything. For traveling, roommates or to share dinners.
What happens when I look for someone to go a specific event that I want to go? Not easy to find.
As a result ... Frustrated users opinions 😩
I designed Eventoners, an app that allow users to meet new people that are interested in same music events but they don't know each other yet.
Exploratory research: “What’s up with...?”
I needed to depersonalize the work, cover my bias, better understanding of the context and topic.
I checked existing studies, made field observation and I interviewed people.
Music is an integral part of our lives. There is more music being made than ever before. There are more ways to consume it. There are more live shows. Live music industry has continued to grow:
Research and interview goals
Does people goes alone to music gigs?
If yes, Do they enjoy it? or they'd rather go with someone else?
Does people gets frustrated when they have no partner to go with?
My sample:
- Female and male
- 20 to 35 years old (Average age of people in music festivals is 26)
- Must have attended to live music events in the last year, at least once.
1. "¿Have you ever been alone at any live event (i.g. live concert) ?"
2. "If you went alone at a concert, how did you feel it?"
... At this point I asked directly what frustrated my before:
3. "¿Have you ever wanted to go a music concert and you have no one to go with?"
4. "¿Would you like to go with new people with similar interest to you to those gigs?"
Would they value a solution to this problem? Am I solving real problem?
68% would like to know new people that matches with their interests.
We validated initial assumption.
Testimonials
- They have 2 major frustrations accumulated (no companion + no having a platform for this purpose)
- People who would rather go with someone to concerts, feels highly motivated to meet new people.
Analyzing competitors and user journey
Testing others’ designs showed me strengths and weaknesses of an existing design & helped me to put myself in frustrated persons shoes that looks for a concert partner. What they would do in that situation?
Ideation
Externalizing ideas: From mind to map
Some of the people I've interviewed where so curious about my project, that I invited them to collaborate with the project. We brainstormed solutions together in a mind map. Intention was to come up with many ideas as possible.
Core functionalities
First iterations learnings
- "Post" action is not efficient interaction and flexible way to express your interest
- As social app, build trust to meet strangers is essential. Verify Facebook profile of Phone number arises as need
- Personalisation: Emphasis in interest in common
- Message screen is needed, as you can get multiple chats
Design goals
- Validate product market fit
- Get qualitative notes of the overall understanding of the app, core functionalities, intuitiveness and reliability
Design Feedback & Iterations
a. Express my interest for that gig
"I want to go" is core action for the app, should be trackable, intuitive & easy to reach. That's why I've moved from Posting action to Dialog (Modal) solution. After few explorations, some users noticed the similarity to events page to facebook. As we know users spend most of their time on other sites, I decided to replicate design patterns for which users are accustomed.
b. Send / Accept invitations
Track matches between would essential to get metrics, and for eventual monetization. That's why I moved from a simple chat to a modal inviting to confirm the action.
CTA's is added in an easy to tap area. Once invitation to connect is sent, one dialog pop-up to confirm the action. Following material design conventions for dialogs & design heuristics
c. Tab bar: Cohesive design matters
Modify standard tab bar and making a button stand out implies a high risk to be perceived as different from UI; like Luke Wroblewski explained here. I've changed to integrated tab bar design.
Priming: adding an image of people having fun lets user dream about their next gig with a partner increases the chances of a positive experience
d. Search: actionable component & smart defaults
Accurate suggestions improves speed and decision making. I designed a component which you can directly navigate to, prioritized to show what’s actionable, and skipped by now to develop a different results page.
e. Asking users to access their location
If we increase location data, we'd explore user new engagement strategies; driven by users intention and made in context, the experience on the user’s side would feels more natural, then, better conversion.
Latest iterations insights:
(+)
3/3 user does not have problems to find the event
3/3 users have seen CTA
3/3 understood invitation process
(-)
3/3 Users goes directly to see people interested, before express interest in the event
3/3 user don't see very clear what to do first: Choose partner or choose event
Insights:
Users does not understand how list of people is ordered.
One User asked how is ticketing system. Each person buy their own ticket?
Users liked: Read more on events, Bands we like, Instagram integration.
Cancel invitation: is not clear what to cancel
Recommendations:
Display people invested after clicking “I want to go”
Explain why we are showing those people first and not others.
Results & Learnings
Potencial growth: User suggested to use this format for cinema, theater events, etc.
Monetization: Sell tickets trough the app with integrated API and get a commission; Freemium limited matches; Marketing partners: artists and agencies.
Features backlog: filters, profile reviews, gamification rewards program, personalized gigs and people based on preferences, geolocation, friends in common; custom calendar for the meeting
Touchpoints backlog: notification “Invitation” to accept, invitation received
❗Blockers
Gigs database: Needed for options to implement it. Feasibility project might be affected. (Check API's)
✅ Learnings
Embraced the cycle: Research - Design - Testing - Implementation
Question everything: Spot the problem, engage with it, then solution
Early, often, more: Iterations helped to identify new solutions, and make changes quickly and with less effort
Speed first, aesthetics second: Several stages main goal is validate functionality, not polish UI
Get things done: Accumulation of very smalls steps is essential
Continuous learn by doing: Each small problem you face you learn something new. You learn what works, and what doesn't. You learn how to do things faster, better, and more efficient. You learn random things along the way while trying to learn about the thing you're actually trying to learn ;-)
🔜 Future steps
Smoke test: Second round of validation would be possible by placing a google ad to check initial interest
Keep testing and iterating: This project is very much like a hobby to me. After the first cycle of learning - designing - validating, I'm open to pitching the idea to potential partners to build the MVP or discuss database implementation options.
That's all folks! Thanks for getting here.
Camilo
