The Splendour in the Grass mobile application, reviewing the festival app experience! 🌈📱🎉
Hey, fellow festival-goers and tech enthusiasts! 🌈
If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent the weekend gone at Splendour in the Grass. For those who missed it, this year’s event was an absolute blast, filled with pink fashion, sensational artists (hello, Lizzo!), and, best of all, no mud in sight! 🌸🎶
Although deeply entrenched in the music, my programmer's brain remained. Meaning I couldn’t help but dive into how the Festivals application could be made even more fabulous.
So, let’s talk about the unexpected gem, which was the Splendour in the Grass app! 📱💎 This application allowed me to curate my festival experience with a personalised timetable, which meant no more lugging around printed schedules. Heck yeah! All I had to do was tap my way to my customised lineup filled with artists like Peach PRC, Tove Lo and Noah Cyrus 🎵
The app got even groovier when I figured out you could click on artists and get the inside scoop on who they are and what they’re all about! And those in-app reminders? Pure lifesavers! They saved my track pants from turning into permanent festival attire. 😅👖
Of course, no party is perfect, and I’ve got some ideas to take this app from fantastic to mind-blowing for next year’s festival! So, here’s to making the 2024 application experience more intuitive than ever!
🌈 Accessibility for All: I believe in inclusivity, which means considering everyone! When reading the reviews on the application, one of the comments I came across was about the application experience being inaccessible for colour blindness. Whilst I love the Splendour colours, I think it’s essential that people evaluate colour combinations to avoid problematic pairings. Utilising colour palettes with sufficient contrast will ensure content is readable and navigable for all users.
To solve this, colour contrast analysis tools can be used during the design phase to ensure the application addresses potential accessibility issues. Below I’ve used the Wave Tool, which is a Google extension that allows individuals to make informed designs on accessibility. On the left side of the image below, you can see that the Splendour website had seven contrast errors, which have likely been recreated on the mobile application.
📅 Multiple Views, Multiple Vibes: Tastes vary, like the beats on the main stage! The application creators understood this and ensured there were multiple ways to view your curated list of artists. However, how about giving users the power to have an extra timeline view similar to the PDF version?
To do this, you could introduce an extra option accessible in landscape mode. It’s not a must-have, but a good backlog item that would add an extra layer of ease for festival-goers. 🎶🎉
📍 Lost? Not Anymore! We’ve all been there — wandering, searching for our squad at a festival, only to be lost within the group. Therefore, I liked how the application lets you track your friend's most recent location. However, I do feel this feature could have been more user-friendly. This feature could be streamlined to ensure two individuals don’t have to send separate invites to follow each other.
Refining the system to automatically establish a mutual connection when a user accepts an invite would eliminate the confusing process of reciprocal invitations. Furthermore, integrating an alert function for quick messages and geo-tag sharing would allow for smooth communication, ensuring friends can reunite effortlessly. 🗺️👫
💉 Safety First, Always: Safety and well-being is a priority at festivals. Incorporating optional water reminders and making first aid and safety information a main touch point in the application emphasises the festival’s commitment to patron health and happiness.
I acknowledge there were spaces on the application. However, this space would be extended by integrating the application with the patron hotline, so users can press a button and automatically have the number on their keypad. Additionally, optional water reminders could be set up with push notifications based on user preference. 🚑 🆘
🎊 Revamped Main Page for engaging content: The main page could serve as a dynamic hub for festival updates, highlights and content from the festival day, allowing users to stay engaged and informed. The main page could also link to Splendour’s Instagram tag so you don’t miss festival highlights.
The application already does updates, like how the Splendour application notification hinted at a surprise, which ended up being an appearance from Mallrat! What a win! However, this would be nice to put on the main page. Additionally, the app could be linked to Splendour’s Instagram tag by integrating with the platform's API. 📸🎉
In conclusion, improving the application could be an even better festival companion. Whilst I acknowledge its App Majik behind the scenes, I still believe Splendour could work with the company to make the app the ultimate festival companion, taking your experience to stratospheric levels of fun and excitement! 🚀🎉
So, until next year’s mind-blowing festival adventure, keep those rainboots shoes on standby and prepare for next year's lineup! I can’t wait to see what next year's mobile application has to bring🌟🎉
