MyIN — A UX Case Study
The UX behind finding your IN to the city’s hottest events.
MyIN is a centralized platform, connecting users to promoters or clubs to access the hottest club, concert or sporting event in the city. The application allows its users to organize their friends who attend events with them. When a user finds event they want, they contact the promoter or venue through the app, choose the level of service they desire and then invite their friends. While inviting their friends, they can share to join their guest list, send each other tickets securely, split bills, and chat within the app to ensure everyone knows what the nights plan is. If added to the inner circle, friends can see the events the users are attending and request to join.
The client approached to complete a three part project. The first part is to create a sporting and concert event extension to the MyIN app that already consists of clubs. The second part is to create an payment processing outlet for users to be able to purchase their tickets and other services on the app. The MyIN Broker application is a third part of the project which is to create a separate platform that allows verified brokers to register, view outstanding requests and message users if they have inventory meeting the users requests.
Design Process
The design thinking process was used to complete all three parts of the project to be able to justify our decisions based on research, planning and design sketches — with iterating the prototype and testing stages.
Interviews
Conducted Interviews for Brokers
An interview was prepared to be able to engage brokers on their current work flow and how the application can be designed to enhance and improve their productivity.
Sample Interview Questions include:
- Do you have any experience purchasing tickets? Are there any frustrations and what were they?
- Are there any opportunities to improve purchasing tickets?
- What considerations would you factor into buying resale tickets if they were available?
Interview Insights
With the results from the interview, we were able to identify that some of the issues that they go through when being a broker is dealing with fraud, multiple ticket offers and fluctuating demand. As brokers tend to purchase tickets for events ahead of time, it is difficult to understand the market until it is closer to the date of the events. Some brokers purchase different kinds of tickets to avoid putting all eggs in one basket. The tickets are usually virtual with some exception to supplying tickets at the venue. If there are returning customers for tickets, it is based on trust and customer service.
Surveys
Conducted Surveys for Concertgoers and Sport Fans
There were two separate surveys for concertgoers and sport fans to designing the extension of the app.
Sample Survey Questions include:
- Do you have any experience purchasing tickets? Are there any frustrations and what were they?
- Are there any opportunities to improve purchasing tickets?
- What considerations would you factor into buying resale tickets if they were available?
Survey Insights
The results from the survey show that results from both concertgoers and sport fans were very similar in terms of the experiences in purchasing tickets. The sample size considered price, convenience to be important factors when purchasing tickets. Other comments from the survey include:
“…don’t emulate personal shopping sufficiently — especially being able to see everything available and to check all dates easily, etc.”
“Not being able to select specific seats. Picking pricing tiers then being assigned seats is annoying. Also not being able to see what seats are available, just sections or tiers.”
“Extensive experience. Frustrations — mandatory booking fee”
Affinity Diagram
The results from the interviews and surveys were written on sticky notes and grouped together to be organized into groups of common themes/relationships. This allowed us to understand what should be considered when developing wireframes and prototypes.
Personas
Below are the two personas generated based of the answers received from the research: for the user and the broker.
Research Findings
With the three part project, we realized that we had to consist the following by the end of the sprint
- Sports and Concert extension on the app has to be displayed with separate moods to differentiate the experience
- The payment process must be seamless not to break the flow of purchasing tickets
- MyIN Broker app should consist of automated processes within messages to save time
Planning
Feature Prioritization
Based on the research done, we took a list of features and prioritized based on the project scope and the level of importance for the users. Below are two diagrams representing the MyIN and the MyIN Broker app.
User Stories
As a sport and concertgoer, I want to find valid resale tickets so that I can attend a concert that interests me.
As a ticket broker, I want to find people who are looking for tickets to attend the city’s hottest sporting event or concert so that I can clear my inventory.
User Flow Diagram
Below is the user flow for the entire app that was created throughout the 3 week sprint. The orange path is to represent submitting a request for a specific concert event. The blue path represents inputting payment methods in settings for the app to be able to capture the preferred payment method when transactions are finalized. The purple path is the happy path when requests are accepted by the broker to purchase tickets.
Design
During the design stage, we sketched potential screens for the MyIN 3.0 and the MyIN Broker app.
Below are the Version 1 mid-fidelity screens that were created based on the lo-fi sketches.
Click here to view the V1 of MyIN app prototype.
Click here to view the V1 of MyIN Broker app prototype.
Test
V1 was tested on InVision to ensure that the mobile website was seamless for a first time user in order to be able to navigate through both apps.
Usability Test Instructions:
MyIN App: Imagine you are looking for concert tickets on the MyIN app. Find the concert you like and submit a request
MyIN Broker App: Imagine you are a broker managing your tickets. You have an unread message. Read the message, accept the request and ask appropriate questions to be able to sell your tickets correctly.
Findings from testing:
Most testers were able to navigate through the test without much difficulty. We have recorded the issues that were faced during the usability testing to improve and create an outstanding high fidelity for both MyIN and MyIN Broker app.
MyIN App Modifications
Issue#1: Too much clutter at the top with confusing filter options
Solution#1: Followed standard navigation bar from club app and simplified the search field and included map field.
Issue#2: Event details were buried on the top and submitting request wasn’t clear
Solution#2: Elaborated the event details under the event image and created a separate section at the bottom of the page for users to submit requests without confusion.
Issue#3: Filters for tickets were limiting and invite CTA wasn’t clear
Solution#3: Created two relative filters for tickets to be able to view saved and past events to organize relative events clearly. Removed invite CTA and added view details and set reminder as those were to be the most important CTAs.
MyIN Broker App Modifications
Issue#1: Submitting offers for brokers was confusing and unclear
Solution#1: Created a clear and concise interface to submit offers received from users with the option of adding new offers after inputting an offer one at a time.
Issue#2: Messaging didn’t have enough automation — after messaging breaks into conversation, there was no way to bring it back to automation
Solution#2: Add “Send Offer” and “Accept” as buttons until there is an accepted offer in the conversation for the chat bot to be incorporated in the conversation again.
Issue#3: There was no filtering system for messaging for brokers to able to find specific events or requests
Solution#3: Created filters based on outstanding offers with 3 sections: All, sports and events. For sports, it was filtered by league. For events, it is filtered by the month in which it is happening. All offers that have been completed are moved into the ‘completed offer’ section.
Visual Design
Mood Board + Style Guide
We created three mood boards: Concert, Sports and general. This is to create a different feel for each section of the app while incorporating an inclusive design when viewing combined choices or different aspects of the app irrelative to the choices of events. Each style guide was designed accordingly.
Design Solution
After testing the prototype, making necessary changes, the link to high fidelity version of the MyIN App is here, along with the MyIN Broker App here.
Summary
MyIN proposed a three part project which was to extend their current app with two other modules, create a new app entirely for brokers and incorporate a payment method to be able to purchase tickets on the app. Although it was a large scope for a three week sprint, each UX designer was responsible one part of the project and we both collaborated on the payment method to be able to complete the project successfully and on time. When it came to the messaging aspect and ensuring that both apps were compatible, one UX Designer took charge of that to avoid confusion between the two apps. This project was definitely a great challenge as the challenge and time constraint forced us to work efficiently and creatively.
Thank you.