Overview

Problem

Over 32 million people attend music festivals annually in the USA alone, however there is no easy way to keep track of what festivals you want to attend and what festivals your friends are interested in.

Solution

Totem is a social media app geared towards the music festival scene. It serves as a platform that focuses on improving a festival-goers discovery and planning phases by blending it with the sharing and community aspects of social media.

My Role

UX/UI Designer, UX Researcher

Timeline

3 Months

Tools

Figma, Miro, Monday

Design Process

1.

Empathize

Surverys
Interviews
Current Pain Points
Understand Goals
Competitive Analysis

2.

Define

Determine Key Problems
Explore Solutions
Design Requirements

3.

Design

Ideations
Sketching
Wireframes
Interactive Prototype
Iterations

4.

Test

Usability Testing

Design Outcome

Skip to Prototype

Make Planning Easier

Dedicated festival pages that show posts that the festival can make for announcements and important updates. In these pages you can scroll though their feed, save artists from the lineup, and se when those artists are performing. From the main mage you can mar if you are either interested or going to the festival.

Stay Updated

A main feed page is used to see a timeline of updates and posts from friends and festivals. Here you can interact with them by liking, commenting, and reposting. A public profile is available for friends to see posts you’ve made and what festivals you’re interested in. Within the festival page you can easily see who else is interested in via the dedicated page.

Solutions

Festival Page

Access to announcements, artist lineup, and set times in one organized area. See who else shares your interest in specific festivals

Main Feed

See announcements and updates from festivals and friends in a chronological order.

Personal Profile Page

Share posts and organize festivals for friends to see.

Understanding the Problem

The Problem

Over 32 million people attend music festivals annually in the USA alone, however there is no easy way to keep track of what festivals you want to attend and what festivals your friends are interested in.

Research Methodologies

In order to dive deeper into how to i should approach this problem I performed a competitive analysis of similar apps, gathered survey data, and conducted interviews.

Goals

From the research I wanted to determine the strengths and weaknesses of current apps, understand the main pain-points of the festival experience, as well as get an in-depth perspective from festival-goers.

Competitive Analysis

Insomniac

An app that provides information for all concerts, festivals, and events under the insomniac records label.

Strengths:

  • Multiple Festivals
  • Access to festival details

Weaknesses:

  • No easy sharing
  • Exclusive to Insomniac Events

Bonnaroo

The festival-specific app for Bonnaroo.

Strengths:

  • Themed uniquely to Bonnaroo
  • In-depth information

Weaknesses:

  • Poor UX. Not easily navigable
  • Information overload in some areas

Radiate

A music-festival oriented social media app the prioritizes meeting new people.

Strengths:

  • Community Based
  • Multiple Festivals

Weaknesses:

  • Focused on creating new connections
  • Forum-based interactions

Survey and User Interview Findings

I conducted a survey that received 21 responses and I interviewed 5 people to gain deeper insights into the needs of festival-goers. The interviewees were all people that have gone to at least 3 festivals and are avid participants in the scene.

Main Discoveries

  • The pre and during phases garnered the most phone usage.
  • Most people announce their festival interests via Instagram Story.
  • People lose track of which festivals their friends are interested in.
  • People usually festival-specific apps after the event.
  • Frequently researched topics include Lineup, Location, Set Times, and Bag Policy.
  • People placed planning artists to see as a top priority.
  • 94% of respondents share those artists with others

Key Focuses

  • Planning phase.
  • Key festival information.
  • Communication and sharing among friends.

Persona

Marilyn

She is an avid festival-goer and attends at least 2 festivals a year. She has friends all over the country that attend music festivals as well. Most of the festivals she attends are EDM-based, but she is open to discovering festivals focused on different genres. She wants to know what festivals her friends are interested and more easily organize and share her interests with her friends.

Frustrations

  • The current apps are only helpful leading up to a festival and she finds herself in a cycle of downloading and deleting them.
  • She only learns of her friends interests when they post it on their social media or text ina a gorupchat, but they are quickly lost in the timeline.
  • The announcements and updates from festivals are lost in the various outlets of social media and it can be a burden trying to find what she is looking for.

Needs

  • An app that has a constant place on her phone rather than a lifetime based on festival cycles. It can be a central place for communication and planning.
  • A way to stay updated with both friends and festivals without the distraction of other posts and accounts. An organization of festival for herself and friends to quickly know who is interested in what.
  • Pages specifically focused on a festival that hold the essential information that is needed for planning and the information that is most commonly shared among friends.

Design Requirements

Festival Preparation

Find essential information of festivals. This includes date and location. As the festival announces more information such as artist lineup and set times, the festival page will update accordingly and make that information available.

Staying Updated

The use of timelines and notifications will allow the user to stay updates on both festival announcements and their friends' interests. A chronological timeline for the main feed, festival page, and profile feed will accomplish this.

Organization

Set up an area within the app that displays the user's saved festivals. This will allow them to keep track of their interests and share them more easily.

Coordination

There must be features within the app to make coordination between users easier. The app will allow the user to see what festivals their friends are interested in, the artists they are interested in for that festival, and quick communication via messaging within the app.

User Flows

Early Exploration

These are examples of the explorations I had while deciding how a user interacts with the app. On the left are early examples of a feed, profile page, and saved festivals. On the right was a more detailed exploration of how I decided the feed will look.

Iterations

These photos are examples of some of the designs I treated on to reach the final prototype. The first image on the left is an early exploration of the festival page. I was figuring out how to incorporate the aesthetic of the festival while keeping it aligned with the UI design I was creating. The middle image was the original home page idea. In this iteration there was a heavy focus on planning, however the community aspect became an afterthought in the design. The final image on the right showcases the various components I created to make a coherent design system. I took an atom-based design approach and for each component I made a few iterations before deciding on their final designs.

High-Fidelity Prototype

User testing

Throughout the process of designing and iterating, I conducted user tests to help guide and define the direction to take the app. In order to do this I held meetings with users and gave them task flows to see how they navigated though the pages and also observed how they used the app based on their own curiosity. From my tests I learned that the interface is easily navigable and that the task flows are intuitive for the age range of expected users.

Moving Forward

The finished product contains all of the features that I believe are essential to the problem I set out to solve. However, there are a features that I believe can elevate the experience if this were to be pushed to production. Artists pages, music-streaming integration, and festival community chats are a few Ideas that I think can add to the user's experience. Likewise, I think a "festival-mode" that has all of the essential information preloaded so it is accessible with no signal can be helpful when tackling the during-festival phase of use. Finally, a feature that is more of a stretch goal is a QR friend adding system similar to snapchat. With this feature, the user can add new friends they meet in person and it can display a screen that shows similar music interests, festivals both have attended, and mutual friends.

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