EDMTrain
Revamping the current app experience to boost event discovery, increase ticket sales, and attract new festival attendees.
my Role
As the product designer, I considered the goals of both the business and user to deliver a product that benefits both parties. My responsibilities include product scoping, wireframing, prototyping, and usability testing.
Additionally, I conducted user research, synthesized data, and facilitated testing sessions to discover viable ideas to pursue.
Company
EDMTrain
Timeline
July 01, 2024 - July 26, 2024
EDMTrain is an app designed for fans of electronic dance music (EDM) to discover concerts and festivals. With over 150k downloads in the app store and 650k followers on Instagram, it’s a valuable source of information for the EDM community and many rely on it to choose their next events.
This project looks to transform the current app experience to better align with user expectations and increase satisfaction that will in turn lead to more engagement and ticket sales. We want to boost the credibility of EDMTrain as a reliable resource that users can trust and organizers seek collaboration with.
Attendees are already often overwhelmed by the sheer number of events and the challenges of coordinating attendance. The lackluster experience provided by EDMTrain is often leave ravers leaving the app to find other information sources, leading to loss in engagement, ticket sales, and loyalty. Through user interviews and AI, I analyzed the current state of the EDM market to identify a persona that best reflects the mindset of the average raver.
Phase one scope
Analyzing the current app exeperience
There are use cases of EDMTrain that keep attendees coming back, so I ran a design audit and heuristics evaulation on the current design and looked to improve upon the most crucial features to better match user expectations and industry standards. These were the four heuristics that most violated usability on the EDMTrain app.
I planned my next steps based on the heuristics evaluation. One recommendation was to create an updated sitemap in order to define the information architecture and make it simpler for users to move through the app with confidence.
Armed with a new sitemap and a good idea of what usability issues to focus on, I began sketching some screens. Along with the usablity, I aimed to improve the interface with better spacing and text sizing for a clearer visual hierarchy and scannability. These wireframes will become the foundation for the app's new UI.
Redesigned screens
By providing a more personalized events recommendations, attendees will never miss an event from their favorite artists and can feel more encouraged to buy a ticket to an event. This is an effective method for EDMTrain to boost conversion rates and make more sales.
Events entail many moving parts, and it’s most convenient for attendees to find have as much information as possible available to them provided in place. By designing a page with points of interaction, attendees can scan the crucial details and choose to dig deeper about ticket sales, lineups, and location. This way, they can stay within EDMTrain without other extra effort.
The search and filter function is essential for event discovery, but the current design offers limited functionality. To enhance user experience and provide a more structured discoverability, I incorporated filter options that allow users to organize events by location, genre, dates, etc.
The user dashboard is now more efficient at tracking personal activity and accessing information attendees saved. This way, they can use EDMTrain to stay organized on their plans and know which events they’ve attended and what they want to attend next.
Phase two scope
With the core features reworked, I revisited my user interviews to identify any additional commonalities or recurring themes mentioned by festival goers. I found that they emphasized wanting to promote their core philosophy PLUR (peace, love, unity, respect). Being such a community-driven group, attendees are want the ability to connect and discuss with each other.
Below are some quotes from my interviews that best describes the overall sentiment of festival attendees.
By finding the common themes from my interviews, I understood how much attendees really valued each other and their experiences, even between strangers. Because of this, I set my sights on integrating features that will allow attendees to exchange ideas, ask questions, and share their experiences.
There’s no platform made specifically for EDM events, so the integration of a forum is the perfect place to come together for discussion and share knowledge.
Being able to engage with other attendees can motivate an individual to further explore the culture and create hype for upcoming events.
There are things about festivals that cannot be predicted unless having went, so having this section can provide valuable information that can’t be found anywhere else.
It would be helpful to know what previous attendees thought of festivals, and could help considering future attendees to make more informed decisions.
Besides the core flows, there were several other use cases that the app now encompasses.
Solution
EDMTrain now recommends the most relevant events and offers a robust search system for events based on specific categories such as location, genre, dates, etc. A mega dubstep fanatic? Never miss a dubstep event in your area, no matter how big or small!
No longer do you need external services to find event details. EDMTrain now provides all the information you need from venue, date, lineup, and ticket links! There are also now reviews to see what previous attendees really think about an event or venue.
Have a profile that keeps track of your activity and events you plan to attend. Use this profile to connect with other festival goers on the forum, make new friends, and ingrain yourself into the community.
impact
I performed five A/B usability testing to see how users interacted with the old design vs the new design with the goals of validating the changes I had made on three main points.
Now that the attendees could gather all the information they needed to consider attending an event, they could move onto adding the event to their go-to list or immediately purchase a ticket without leaving the app to find more details. They were further able to search for more specific events if the personalized homepage didn’t quite have what they were looking for.
🚫 Reduced error and frusteration
By fixing the navigation, content organization, and dashboard, users were more confident about moving through the flows and where to click to complete the tasks at hand. They were no longer confused about where to access their profile and why their homepage was showing irrelevant content.
🤝🏻 Aligned with business objectives
Users spent on average 2 more minutes exploring and engaging with the app now that there were new segments they could explore, such as the forum and reviews. They can also share content from EDMTrain to their friends, which would bring valuable exposure and curious new users.