TIXSTOP
Your one-stop shop for finding event tickets
TixStop allows users to compare ticket prices across multiple platforms to ensure they are truly getting the best price.
Summary
Problem
Live entertainment is back in 2023.
But so are tricky hidden costs, scalpers, and junky interfaces that can time out, stall, and otherwise frustrate users looking for a relaxing night out or a trip to the ballpark. Instead of jumping around between apps to compare prices, avoid fees, and shop for experiences that may suit one’s taste – Can one app mitigate these concerns and provide a seamless experience?
Solution
Giving our users a personalized experience to easily find tickets to their favorite events, free from navigating outside of the app to compare price points and options.
Tools
Miro
Fimga
Trello
My Role
UX Design Lead
Project Manager
Branding
UX Research
Team
1 Project Manager
4 UX Designers
Timeline
3 weeks
Design Process
research
Surveys
After the project kickoff, we defined our research strategy and objectives. Understanding the target audience and their challenges was our priority.
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First, we built an online survey and shared it in various relevant communities. In just a few days, we received 14 submissions.
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We wanted to understand what apps users were using to buy tickets, how often they were going to events, and what were some of the general pain points.
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Many of the questions were either a single-choice, or multi-select, but in the end, we allowed users to answer how the overall ticket-buying experience could be made better. Based on these, we were able to get a glimpse of some of the pain points and used these insights to shape our interview questions.
interviews
During the empathize phase of the project, my team and I conducted user interviews to build a user persona and to inform the design. We wanted to gain a better understanding of the pain points users faced when trying to buy event tickets. In total, we recruited and interviewed 10 users, both in person and remotely. We referenced the user interview findings throughout the entire design process.
User Insights
Many people across the US experience difficulty when purchasing event tickets. Following preliminary research and analyzing interview data, we noticed that most issues centered around:
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Low transparency with ticket pricing
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Low flexibility with ticket exchange and delivery
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General frustration with user experience and long wait times
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Site crashes
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Decision fatigue
Affinity Diagram
Condensed Affinity Diagram
Affinity Diagram
After noting all the responses from our interviews, the team created an affinity diagram. From there we were able to define 7 distinct categories that were discussed in the interviews:
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Versatility
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Digital Storage Optimization
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Centralization & Presentation
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Price Transparency & Clarity
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Personalization & Customization
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Low Usability & Efficiency
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Authenticity & Reliability
Competitor analysis
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To understand the current products used, we created a competitive analysis with some of the most popular ticket-buying apps in the market. We noted a few of their key weaknesses and used this to figure out where TixStop could fill in the gaps.
Obviously, majority of the sellers had hidden fees and, in some cases, made the ticket price 40% higher.
What was interesting was that vendors like Seat Geek and TickPick had issues with customers recieving tickets. In TickPick's case, it was prevalent that they had issues that stem from other sellers on the site not sending the tickets to the buyer. While Seat Geek's problem was overbooking events for or customers receiving a refund, and seems to be the biggest pain point for the company.
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Though these issues are outside the scope of this project, it would be interesting to figure how to combat this in the future.
user definition
User Persona
We wanted to form a deeper understanding of our users' goals, needs, experiences, and behaviors. So after reviewing our observations from both our interviews and survey, we created a persona to further define our target audience that would use TixStop. Our persona, Molly, was kept in mind throughout the entire design process.
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Customer Journey
We created a customer journey map and modeled the customer experience after using TixStop. This particular journey is the ideal experience a customer goes through when using our application.
FEATURE PRIOTIZATION
Brainstorming
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Now that we had defined Molly, it was time to brainstorm ideas on the sort of features that would be beneficial to her within the app. We filled sticky notes with ideas that were shaped by user insights (above) and then used those sticky notes in a feature prioritization matrix (right) to decide which ideas were most important to TixStop's functionalilty.
How might we
Finally, before prototyping, we asked questions to make sure that the usability of TixStop was understood by both the group and users.
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How might we present events in a clear and concise manner?
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How might we ensure transparency of costs?
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How might we ensure access to digital tickets?
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How might we offer a personalized experience within the application?
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How might we create a simple, efficient, and user-friendly experience for users?
lo-fi & mid-fi prototypes
user flow
Before building out wireframes, we set up a user flow to help us map out what pages needed to be built and ensure that the process was both intuitive and functional.
We split the flow into two key portions: the UX of setting up the user profile and browsing for and purchasing tickets.
LO-FI PROTOTYPES
We began with sketching paper prototypes to get our ideas out before we began to transform them into digital assets. Then, using Figma, we created mid-fi wireframes and used these to start our user testing.
usABILITY testing
To start our user testing, we created a testing plan that set up tasks for users to perform to ensure that the page was functional. We then performed 5 user tests on our mid-fi prototype and found a few issues noted by our users.
Some of the issues included:
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Bottom navigation was unresponsive
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Some screens were missing back buttons.
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Share and Transfer buttons were not clear.
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Users wanted the ability to sort ticket map by seat and by section.
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The symmetry of the interface bothered the user.
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Trouble locating the Art Exhibit ticket to buy on the wallet screen due to spacing and things being too clumped together.
improvements & iterations
After testing, we begin to implement the suggestions from the user testing to build out our hi-fi prototypes.
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Design Decisions
As the UX Design Lead, I had a big part of making the design choices for the project. For the color palette, I was heavily inspired by the imagery of a night on the town. The fog that covers the stage from the smoke machines, going to a concert and seeing the bright neon stage lights that contrast the dark of night spark anticipation for the act that is coming to grace the stage. These are the feelings I wanted to evoke when users opened TixStop and therefore, created a color palette to recreate that.
Redesigning the seat map from our original design, I felt that it made it easier for users to see exactly what seats they were selecting for the event. We did receive some feedback from users that the seat selection was a bit too big, and in hindsight, this is something about the current design.
I decided to add a more visual element to the wallet, as the original was text heavy and a bit difficult to read, according to users. This also provided less steps for the user to present their ticket at the door by providing the QR code directly on the ticket.
Final prototypes
The following videos allow you to see users tasks such as onboarding, navigating the feed, and selling tickets within the application.
CONCLUSION
New challenges
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Beyond the scope of our project to solve the massive problem of ticket price-gouging nationwide.
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Had to find a way to add value without completely saving the world from ticket prices.
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Keep the user within the app to buy tickets from outside vendors.
What we learned
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How to make steady progress over time both in a directly collaborative context and asynchronously.
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Prioritizing core functionality with a focus on feature-driven experience.
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Understanding the "why" of design choices based heavily on user research.
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Practiced Project Management techniques (Kanban) to organize and streamline task completion.
changes I would haved made
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I would have changed the way the user journey map was set up. It would have served a lot more benefit if the journey was made in the current state as opposed to the future state.
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As I now have a better understanding of best design practices, there are some changes I would make to the color palette to add more contrast against certain elements and make them more visibly accessible.
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I would change the design of the venue map so that it would be more visually appealing and accessible to users.
next steps
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Secure opt-ins and data-sharing contracts from the retailers mentioned. (Ticketmaster, SeatGeek, Tick Pick, etc.)
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One-strike policy for re-sellers that attempt to sell a ticket for above 20% of the original purchased value.
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Artists opt-in to sell tickets directly to fans on the app.
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Partner with rights groups such as Protect Ticket Rights.
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As part of the brand initiative, position ourselves as early adopters of any progressive legislation related to ticket price transparency.