Case Study: Designing a Post-Covid Music Festival
Overview
As part of Ironhack’s cohort, my team and I were assigned to create a microsite for a curated event. We chose to work with music festivals since COVID has brought on a huge challenge and delay in their operations.
The Event
Our event, Neon Spirits, is a music festival that will utilize technology in order to alleviate COVID concerns such as mass crowds and long lines. The event will offer different ticket tiers including general admission and premium bundles.
Secondary Research
To kick things off, we conducted secondary research to gain good background information on the music festival industry and its effect on people. Some industry statistics include:
- 32 million people go to at least one music festival every year
- 14.7 million of those 32 million are millennials
- 903 miles is what people travel on average to attend a US festival
- 20% of festival goers attend an average of five to six festivals each year
In addition, we discovered some interesting benefits that music festivals hold for our mental health such as…
- Reduces the risk of developing depression and preserves cognition in the over-50s.
- Increases a greater sense of well-being
- Increases feelings of being accepted by self and others, and generally positive about life.
- Key outcomes: personal growth and self-discovery
“We found that going to concerts significantly reduces the levels of the stress hormone cortisol” — Daisy Fancourt, associate professor in epidemiology at University College London.
Altogether, our secondary research provides us with a guide on who our users are and what type of questions we should be asking them as well as gaining insight into their emotional needs during a music festival.
Business Analysis
We then performed a business analysis in order to assess the market for music festivals and determine where our pains, gains, and opportunities lie. Through this analysis, we can potentially find our blue ocean a.k.a. our uncontested market space which would allow us to create a new form of value for our users.
Lean UX
In our Lean UX Canvas, we determined the business problem, users, outcomes, and benefits. The business problem is the music festival and its need to entice people to attend the event. Our users are music lovers and festival-goers as well as businesses that are interested in sponsorships. The business outcomes are based on customer behaviors such as increases in attendees and customer satisfaction, while our user benefits are being able to watch live performances, socialize with friends, relax, and have fun.
Competitive Feature Comparison
In our competitive feature comparison chart, we compared several music festivals including Ultra, Tomorrowland, Summerfest, Beyond Wonderland, and Life is Beautiful. Here we examined what each festival offered such as types of passes, number of days, travel accommodations, merch, apps, and so on. For the most part, all of them shared many of the same features yet differed in their duration and entertainment as some of them such as Beyond Wonderland and Life is Beautiful offered art and culinary experiences to complement the live music performances.
Market Positioning
In our market positioning chart, we arranged all these music festivals based on their level of technology and luxury standing. As you can see in the chart above, none of them were taking advantage of technology to deliver a better user experience. Thus, we found our blue ocean in incorporating technology to the business model.
User Research
Now that we finished analyzing the business of music festivals, we conducted quantitative and qualitative user research to get first-hand knowledge of how users feel about their experiences with these types of festivals. This data will allow us to discover key pain points and create a solution that alleviates those pain points.
Quantitative Data
We first organized a survey in which we got 18 responses. From those responses, we discovered that
- 94% of respondents are motivated to go to a festival based on the music lineup.
- 76% of respondents would travel to another city or country for a music festival.
- 59% of respondents find out information about the festival on its website or physical brochure.
Qualitative Data
We also conducted six user interviews in which we discovered that the mass crowds and long lines at these festivals were a huge annoyance for users.
“I love going to festivals and the energy around them but I hate how crowded they get” — Rebecca
“It was very difficult to drink enough beer to even get slightly buzz, because it takes too long to wait in line for a beer.” — Michael
Defining the Problem
Affinity Map
Sequentially, we gathered all our user data and organized it into an affinity map in order to find trends within the data. Some of our top insights were that users were very frustrated by the long lines for entrance, bathrooms, and food stands as well as how dirty the bathrooms were.
Value Proposition Canvas (Users)
In our Value Proposition Canvas for our users, we determined the customer jobs to be purchasing tickets, supporting local artists, socializing with friends, and posting on social media.
The pain points were high prices, waiting in long lines, intense heat, large crowds, not enough bathrooms, and keeping track of friends. Yet, the gains were watching their favorite artist perform live, discovering new music, making new friends and memories, and disconnecting from the world.
User Persona
We gathered up all this data into a user persona to help illustrate who our user is. Say hello to Sara Johnes, a young actress who likes festivals and enjoys having a good time with her friends. She is planning to go to a festival in Florida for two days and will be staying at a hotel. She is looking forward to having fun with her friends, listening to her favorite artist perform live, finding new friends, and making new memories. Yet, she is frustrated by the parking, long lines, keeping track of her friends, and finding bathrooms.
User Journey
In our user journey, we split up the user experience of the music festival into four phases:
- Pre-festival
- Arriving to the festival
- During the festival
- Post-festival
In the first phase, the user is looking up the lineup of the music festival and purchasing tickets with their friends. The second stage consists of the user figuring out their mode of transportation and arriving at the festival, downloading their tickets, and waiting in the entrance line. In the third phase, the user is finally at the festival watching artists perform live, buying food, drinks, and merch, and looking for empty bathrooms. Finally, in the last stage post-festival, the user is posting on social media about their experience and following the new friends they made at the festival.
Throughout this journey, we discovered several pain points users experience including the slow and long lines, dirty bathrooms, unbearable heat, and losing track of where their friends are. Yet, from these pain points, we found some opportunities to reduce these frustrations such as faster entrance lines, easier parking, cleaner and multiple bathrooms, and providing air fans to alleviate the intense heat.
Problem Statement
Finally, we summed up all our user data into three problem statements:
- Our users are annoyed because prices are too high and there is not enough going on to entertain them the whole time, making them question if it is worth the price.
- Our users are frustrated because the lines are too long, making them grow impatient.
- Our users are disgusted because there is a lack of hygiene especially in the bathrooms which raises health concerns for the upcoming festivals post-COVID.
Ideation
Brainstorming
To kick off our ideation phase, we transformed these problem statements into “how might we” questions in order to help us reframe the problem and start brainstorming solutions. Our questions were:
- How might we give more value to their experience to justify the expense?
- How might we declutter audiences to avoid increases of mass groups?
- How might we improve our hygiene measurements and protocols to put our customers' minds at ease?
Together, we came up with different ideas for each question. Some of our ideas included digital wristbands, online ordering for food and drinks, heat maps, sanitation stations, and multiple air fans.
Feature Prioritization
We then filtered out our ideas using the Impact vs Effort and MOSCOW method charts to determine which features would bring upon the highest impact and which features are absolutely necessary for our solution. This exercise will encourage us to sculpt out our minimum viable product.
In our Impact vs Effort chart, we deduced that our biggest wins would be online ordering, heat maps of the festival grounds, and options for reserving bathrooms and reporting incidents. In the MOSCOW Method, we concluded that the features that are must-haves are being able to pay with the wristbands, a map of where stages, food courts, and restrooms are at the festival grounds, and COVID precautions such as mandatory face masks and sanitation stations.
Value Proposition Canvas (Product)
We created another value proposition canvas but this time focusing on the festival instead of the users. This will allow us to calculate the gain creators and pain relievers of the festival and aid us in creating our MVP.
In this analysis, we determined that the gain creators of the festival were diminishing large crowds and long waiting times while the pain relievers were reducing COVID anxieties and helping users stay informed of where their friends are during the festival.
Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
To recap our problem, users are strongly frustrated by having to wait in long lines and missing out on good parts of the shows. They also expressed signs of worry since festivals are not the most covid-friendly environment.
Finally, we summarized all the research and analysis that we have performed up to this point into our minimum viable product to alleviate our user pain points. Our MVP, Neon Smart, will be available via a mobile app and feature:
- Heat map of where most people are located in the festival grounds
- Food courts locations & order online to skip lines
- Sanitation locations
- Reporting options for sanitary incidents
- Reserve your spot for the bathrooms
Our MVP will include all these features in the premium ticket bundle, and complement COVID precautions at the festival such as mandatory face masks, body temperature assessments at the entrance, sanitation stations, and social distancing.
Value Proposition Statement
Thus, after carving out our MVP, we have arrived to our value proposition statement:
Our feature, Neon Smart will help attendees who want to avoid lines, by reducing mass crowds so that they can enjoy their show and make the most of their time, which makes them feel satisfied with their purchase.
Interaction Design
We divided our user flow into two parts consisting of a website and a mobile app. The user will first purchase their ticket for Neon Spirits music festival from the website. Once the user has received their festival wristband in the mail, he/she will then move on over to the mobile app to access the features of Neon Smart during the festival.
Our site map for the desktop website includes pages to purchase tickets, learn more about the festival, and seek information on COVID precautions. On the other hand, our mobile app includes pages for the lineup, Neon Smart map, and adding a friend to your account so you can keep track of where they are.
Lo-Fi Prototype
We conducted a usability test of our lo-fi prototype on 7 users which resulted in 14.3% misclicks and an average duration of 43 seconds.
We then interviewed users to gain more information and found out that the login button seemed to be confusing to users.
From the heat map of misclicks, we determined that the call to action button should be emphasized more by using a larger button with a bright color.
Mid-Fi Prototype
In our mid-fi prototype, we conducted another usability test with 12 users which resulted in 11% misclicks and an average duration of 24 seconds. Compared to our lo-fi prototype, this was a 3% decrease in misclicks while our average duration was cut by 19 seconds!
Based on the data we collected from interviewing users again on the mid-fi prototype, we determined it would be best to remove the login button since it confuses the users and create a home button so the users can come back to the main page at any time.
Visual Identity
Visual Competitive Analysis
Before we started working on our high-fi prototype, we conducted a visual competitive analysis on how other music festivals are branding themselves. We took a look at Ultra and Tomorrowland and examined their websites and visuals to gain some inspiration as well as guidance for when we create our brand aesthetics. Ultra and Tomorrowland both use dark background colors on their websites which allows them to highlight their logo and important event info with electric colors. They also displayed various images and videos of their events throughout their websites.
Brand Attributes
We then started carving our brand attributes to help us establish a visual brand for Neon Spirits and guide our UI decisions throughout the prototyping process. The words we chose to describe our brand are…
- Futuristic
- Adventurous
- Tech future
- Fun
- Modern
Moodboard
We followed up with this by creating a moodboard for these brand attributes. We chose images and neon colors that showcased a futuristic and fun dream world.
We then conducted a desirability test on nine users to assess how well our moodboard matches up with our brand attributes. Before revealing to users what our brand attributes were, we displayed our moodboard to them and asked them how they felt about it. Some of the responses we got were that it was futuristic, robotic, disco, exciting, intriguing, and fun. Thus, our moodboard seemed to match up with our brand attributes.
Style Tile
From here, we organized a style tile with our established visual identity for Neon Spirits which consisted of a logo, typography, buttons, icons, and neon brand colors. We conducted another desirability test on our style tile to evaluate its depiction of our brand attributes. Some of our user responses were that it felt energizing, electric, modern, vibrant, adventurous, and seductive. Thus, our style tile stands in line with our brand attributes.
High Fi Prototype
Finally, in our high-fi prototype, we enhanced the user experience by incorporating changes based on the usability tests we ran on our lo-fi and mid-fi wireframes such as removing the login button and adding a homepage button. We also added the brand visuals and colors we chose for Neon Spirits from our moodboard and style tile.
As you can see from the videos above, the user can purchase their ticket for Neon Spirits on the website and then activate their wristband (which they would receive later on by mail) using a QR code on the mobile app. They can also access all the features of Neon Smart such as heat maps, online food ordering, bathroom reservations, and incident reporting on the app.
Success & Failure Metrics
To evaluate the performance of our solution, we determined several success and failure metrics to help us understand how well it is alleviating our user frustrations of long lines and large crowds.
Success Metrics
- Task success rate
- Less waiting time for the bathrooms
- Ease of completion
- Usability score
- User satisfaction score
- Adoption rate
- Online food orders
Failure Metrics
- Bounce rate
- Negative ratings of the event
- Errors in the reservation of the bathrooms feature
- Long wait times for lines
- Limited use of smart wristband features
- # of incident reports
Next Steps
Lastly, our next steps in this iterative design process would include:
- Usability testing for hi-fi prototype
- User feedback on Neon Smart features such as heat map, online food ordering, and bathroom reservations
- Measuring the success of the website and mobile app
- Proposing changes based on collected data research
Key Learnings
Altogether, some key learnings from this entire project are perhaps the importance of testing an existing design in the early stages of the project since it gives us quick design guidance and points us in the right direction as well as making sure to adapt the product to user needs. In addition, this project also brought to light the intrinsic value of purposeful microinteractions in our prototypes and the importance of organizing and renaming layers during our prototyping phase.
