For this project I took on the the popular Hip Hop music festival Rolling Loud. This project consisted of applying the UX process to Rolling Louds current website to solve for information architecture issues, user pain points, and to redesign the UI for a better user experience.
The challenge for this project consisted of understanding the issues that the current website had while solving for them in an efficient way by implementing the UX process. Rolling loud is one of the worlds largest music festivals with an international customer base. As a business they have fierce competitors in festivals like Coachella, Lollapalooza, and Governors Ball. In order to help make them more competitive and improve ticket sales I had to come up with solutions by conducting extensive research, user testing, and acquiring new user data. I also had to do a complete redesign, incorporate their branding, and fix the information architecture.
I started by doing a modified SWOT Analysis. I did some research and choose four competitors that would help me understand the music festival industry. I noted the various strengths and weaknesses of each company. All in all I discovered that each competitor was highly established, had a huge market share, and their online presence were dialed in and had clearly optimized their websites for the user unlike Rolling Loud. The opportunity to innovate I found would be in the design and information architecture of the website. Three of the four competitors had the same design template which failed to distinguish or set apart their identity & brand to users.
Following the modified SWOT analysis I then went and did a feature analysis. I took inventory of each festivals unique features and offerings. I found though secondary research that things like the festival line up, venue map, direct ticket purchasing options, and set times were some of the most important features for users. All of the competitors had these yet none did a great job at allowing users to preview the artists music on their website nor a chance for the user to discover new artists on the website. I had a hypothesis that this would be something interesting to offer and so going into my surveys and interviews I knew I would want to test for this feature to discover if users valued this.
After doing market research I had a few ideas I wanted to test. I decided to conduct a survey to obtain user feedback. I confirmed my previous research that the line up, schedule, venue map, tickets, and dates & times were essential for users to be able to find quickly.
I discovered that most users struggled with either being presented too much or too little information and that this balance would need to be found when testing users.
I also discovered that 40% of users usually are only familiar with 50% of the lineup. Yet in testing 91.5% of users wanted to get to know the artists they were not familiar with and 92% of users expressed they wished they was a easy way to research and learn about the artists they weren't familiar with.
After obtaining some important feedback I wanted to dive deeper into my insights and start talking with people. I was able to obtain five interviews. The main takeaways I got from talking with users is that ticket prices are the main barrier to entry when it comes to attending music festivals. People also expressed that the festival environment is appealing due to it promising a unique experience and this was the main draw/ curiosity that would cause them to attend. In following up testing for the music tool feature, the interview subjects expressed interested in a tool to help them better discover and listen to the festival lineup.
During my user interviews I wanted to take stock and understand the current issues I was facing with the existing website so I could understand how best to improve Rolling Louds online presence. I walked users through the website and gave them common tasks to achieve that were essential to the user experience.
I found that the way Rolling loud was presenting their content and information was confusing to users. Three of my four users struggled to find essential information. Users expressed interest in needing a better way to locate the festival lineup, schedule, set times, stage, and venue maps as it difficult to find and access. 3 of 4 users also confirmed my hypothesis that they would enjoy some sort of music discovery tool.
Once I had understood in concept the direction I was heading in to improve the user experience and some feature innovations to implement I now needed to iron out my user persona. Thanks to all the research and data I was able to craft Emily.
Emily is the type of person too curate the perfect playlist for a five minute drive to the supermarket. She loves music, is a millennial, and prioritizes experiences over material possessions. Her goals revolve around experiencing new things and connecting with fellow music lovers. She needs a tool to help her digest and discover music due to the large amounts of concerts and festivals she attends.
I then began the process of ideating for the new website I would be launching. I had a giant list of ideas that I knew I needed to organize. I decided to do a Moscow method to help me narrow down what my must have features would be. I knew I needed the main essentials easily to be found by users. I also would be incorporating the new music discovery tool for.
I now understood what needed to be done to improve the user experience and accomplish Rolling Loud business goals of selling more tickets and being competitive with some of the more premier festivals. I was going to improve the websites information architecture essentially re organizing everything so users can easily find essential information. I would be redesigning the website and incorporating their branding to help strengthen and improve users perception of them. I would also be innovating on the current market and designing a new experience for users to be able to easily discover and explore the festival lineup.
The first step was going to be to improve the information architecture of the website so users would no longer be confused and could find essential information easily. I decided to conduct a card sorting exercise with 5 users and watched as they explained their logic of where they would expect to find information. I then created a new site map for the website based on the results from the card sorting exercise.
I had already started concept sketching based on my new site map and began to envision how the new layout would come together. I mocked up some mid fidelity wireframes getting a sense for the new layout and improving the user experience pain points found during my research and tesing.
I then went and did some testing to see if my
mid fi designs and added details helped the original concept. I found that users were much happier with the improved site map and less confused but there were still some layout tweaks and concerns that users felt could be improved such as the initial header and wanting to see things like the headlining artist right away.
Additionally I found in the line up flow since Rolling Loud has concerts in different cities. Users wanted to easily find all festival information that pertained to their city & event in one visual. Incorporating something which would allow them to to choose their city would be helpful to the flow.
I then started creating my style guide. I wanted to be true to the brand attributes & voice I had created and based my color and typography choices around those in mind. The colors I would be mainly using were all designed to contrast well with black. Purple, dark pink, yellow, and aqua made the designs pop and complimented the black backdrop. I used Futura and montserrat as my type choice to bring a bold, modern, and clean look to the typography.
I began to created things like buttons, states, and various components I knew I would need from the results of my mid fidelity wireframes. I also spent quite a bit of time finding the right imagery to bring the project to life and contrast well with my branding colors.
Finally after all the research, ideation, testing, and designing I now had my finished product and the manifested vision for Rolling loud was born.
The new website addressed and solved the information architecture issues that were existing causing user confusion and lost opportunities to convert ticket sales. I also strengthened Rolling Louds brand, implemented a new design setting it apart from competitors, and innovated in the market giving users a new discovery music tools that music loves would appreciate.