UX/UI Designer — 8 days
The task at hand
Develop a mobile application that will help the user locate underground art events near them.
Designing for the user
The purpose was to gather information on what users would like to see in the app. Needed to answer questions like these:
Why would the user use this app?
When will the user be using this app?
What information does the user want to see first?
What is the most used information?
How does the user want the information displayed?
Market analysis
I researched 5 apps; 3 competitors (Curate.la, Exhibitionary and See Saw), 2 comparators (Yelp and Google Maps). My goal was to get insight on content hierarchy, display methods, included features and locate any friction points that I want to avoid.
Major research findings
Google Maps integration
Social functions
List view & map view
Venue selection
Multi city
Funding constraints
Who is the user?
Art Enthusiast
The Art Enthusiast lives in the Bay Area. Art lover, especially when it’s underground, local and under represented artists that don’t get enough attention to be on platforms like Yelp and Eventbrite. They don’t have much free time but when they do they’d like to spend it at an art event. They like to walk around the city and enjoy when their friends tag along.
Situation
After finishing lunch with friends, Ty has a couple hours before they are to meet up with their friends at a local bar. Instead of walking around the city they would like to go to an art show featuring a local artist in an intimate venue.
Goal
Ty wants a way to quickly find all the art events nearest to them.
User journey
Current user journey below.
Major friction points when quickly trying to find nearby events.
Ideal user journey below.
Easy flow from start to finish.
Initial iterations: Design studio
Timer set for 5 minutes to get 6 different ideas of the opening screen of the app. Two designs were selected and integrated into 1 design.
Design 3 is the best representation of the final design.
Design 6, the buttons were added to the final design. Ability to navigate from map view to list view or venue selection.
Usability testing: Paper prototype
Test results
5 people were tested with the same prototype and were asked the same questions.
Features users would like to see…
Add a way to share the event
Search function
Sort by price and distance
Move navigation buttons to the bottom
Before the high-fidelity mockup was made, 2 features were added; share button and navigation buttons on the bottom of screen.
High-fidelity mockup
Google Maps integration on first screen to show events closet to users current location. The list view at the bottom is a scrollable and collapsable list similar to other apps like Lyft. The black bar is a modern affordance that is a recognizable design pattern that the user will be able to identify.
When you select an event the list item will appear highlighted and a pop-up will appear that gives the user a more in depth and detailed description of the event.
The user has the ability to share the event and add it to their calendar.
The 3 buttons on the bottom of each screen are; list view, venue selection and refresh (map or list).
List view displays all events in a list that are nearest to you.
Venue selection has a carousel of venues closest to you. Upon selecting a venue the list below will populate with all events in chronological order.
The pop-up window that appears when selecting an event is the same. The only difference is the thumbnail map view of your location and the location of the venue. The use of a hidden affordance by swiping up to exit the pop-up windows.
Where do I go from here?
With more time this app could be more robust with features and functionality. Some ideas I’d like to implement with more time are:
Test the content with users to ensure maximum functionality
Sort by price, distance, type of event
Ability for the user to insert their availability and the app find the best match events
User account to save certain criteria; types of events that most interest them, main city and price range with ability to edit information quickly
Ability to purchase tickets
If the app seems to be doing well, I would like to acquire funding to expand into multiple cities.
Additional points worth discussing in person.
Wireframe annotations
In-depth functionality
Contact information: (317) 332-5348 — ccbarth00@gmail.com