Frances Dy Design | UI/UX Designer

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FRANCES DY

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Improving the search experience of local gigs

With Sofar sounds, you can search for gigs and concerts nearby and book tickets. What makes Sofar sounds create intimate gigs for music lovers in unique places to properly appreciate music and get closer to the artist.

Role

User Research, UI Design, Interaction Design

Tools

Figma, Figjam, Zoom, Dovetail

Timeline

5 weeks

Overview

As part of Memorisely's UI/UX design bootcamp, the team was tasked to improve the search function of Sofar Sounds,

a unique concert website that reveals a specific venue just 36 hours before the event.

As part of Memorisely's UI/UX design bootcamp, the team was tasked to improve the search function of Sofar Sounds,

a unique concert website that reveals a specific venue just 36 hours before the event.

"Imagine booking a gig or concert without knowing the specific venue, artist lineup, and what the place is like. The venue will be revealed 36 hours before the event but the ARTIST LINEUP is a SURPRISE."

Problem

Even if the artist and venue is unknown, users of Sofar sounds would hesitate to go to these kinds of events because they don’t know what to expect and search for aside from the location (city and country).

Limited search

Searching for local gigs using only city locations can result in a lengthy search process with imprecise results.

Lengthy search & browse navigation

Browsing for live concerts requires navigating through multiple pages per location, causing frustration for users.

To narrow the search, the team wanted to learn what people look for in a local gig experience and understand their pain points, since the specific place and artist lineup are unknown.

Research Goal

To learn about potential users' local gig experience.

To understand participant pain points when attending gigs.

To learn about potential users' local gig experience.

To understand participant pain points when attending gigs.

To understand new users' preferences for gigs.

To improve the Sofar Sounds search experience.

The team interviewed 3 participants and was able to gather common pattern on what they are looking for in local gigs.

Below are the participants' pain points when attending gigs:

Incomplete/unknown

artist lineup

Incomplete/unknown

artist lineup

They love to support local artists but If the lineup is incomplete then they feel hesitant to attend the gig.

Inconvenient location/venue

Parking can be hard to find or commute can be long and hassle.

No crowd count/control

They prefer small and intimate gig venues but the downside is it tends to get very crowded.

Finding a compromise to between the user and business

By analyzing participant responses, the team has identified solutions that address user needs while aligning with Sofar sounds’ business model and the goal to increase bookings.

User pain points:

Incomplete/unknown

artist lineup

Incomplete/

unknown

artist lineup

Incomplete/unknown

artist lineup

Inconvenient

location/venue

Inconvenient

location/venue

No crowd count/control

Sofar business model:

Unannounced artist/lineup

Unknown gig venue (it will

only be revealed 36 hours

before the event)

Unknown gig venue (it will

only be revealed 36 hours

before the event)

Unknown gig venue (it will

only be revealed 36 hours

before the event)

Events are small and intimate

What users need:

Users need more information about the event according to their interests like Genre, theme, and etc.

Users need to know if the location is accessible.

User need to know if how many are the attendees the event can accommodate.

Primary Focus

To improve the search function

Secondary Focus

To simplify search and browse navigation

Primary solution

Improve search function

To improve Sofar Sounds' search function, the features below were included based on user feedback:

Number indicator beside the city name: To let users know how many current events are there for each location.

Map pin icon dropdown (additional design): To specify what users can search which is just the location they want to explore.

Current Sofar search bar

Redesigned Sofar search bar

Search filters: Created dropdown filters to give more options to select, filter out, and get customized results.

Redesigned Sofar search filters

Improved search function

To improve Sofar Sounds' search function, the features below were included based on user feedback::

Search filters: Created dropdown filters to give more options to select, filter out, and get customized results.

Number indicator beside the city name: To let users know how many current events are there for each location.

Map pin icon dropdown (additional design): To specify what users can search which is just the location they want to explore.

Secondary solution

Simplify the search & browse navigation

To make the search easier, the process was shortened and reduced the number of pages users needed to visit. A sitemap was created to observe how we could simplify the navigation.

Current Continents page -choose continent and browse cities

Current City page -browse for events in a city

The team decided to replace the separate Continents and City pages with a single Live Concerts page. This eliminates the initial idea of creating a separate View Map page because we found out there's current feature in Sofar where users can click on the event title to be redirected to Google Maps for directions.

Creating a single Live concers page

Initial design: The team designed the initial Live concerts page to make it look simple and neat. However, it didn't feel like it was part of the Sofar sounds website and the plan was to combine the look of the Continents and City page.

Final design: A banner and the four points about Sofar sounds events have been added (based on the Current city page design) to have that familiarity for old users when browsing Sofar Sounds website. The Search filters were placed beside the search bar so that users can search events easier.

Initial design of single events page for Live concerts

Final Design of single events page for Live concerts

Final Prototype

Key learnings and next steps

We were satisfied with the design improvements made to Sofar Sounds' search function and overall design. However, we acknowledge that gathering feedback from a wider range of participants would have provided valuable insights into how to further refine the search filters, considering the diverse experiences and cultural backgrounds of gig attendees.

Despite time constraints limiting our ability to conduct more interviews, a better plan would conducting a usability testing to gather valuable feedback for future design iterations.