Mystix Ticketing App
A live music mobile application dedicated for fans and not for profit.
Overview
With the monopolization of the live music industry with TicketMaster, Live Nation and Vivid Seats, the Mystix Ticketing app seeks to make live music about the fans and for fans.
My team desired to make the solutions to the existing problems in the live music industry as well as introduce aspects of a concert that can benefit our customers through software. We based our application on price visibility, digitizing social phenomenon, supporting customers past selling them tickets and ensuring they are treated as fans of art rather than customers for profit.
Team
• Chris Esmele
• Sierra Hopkins
• Elaine Tse
Tools
• Figma
• Adobe XD
• User Research: Interviews
• Google Office
• Photoshop
My Roles
• Product Manager
• UX/UI Designer (Ticket Purchases)
• Creative Director
• Production Conceptualization
Project Type
• Mobile Application
• Case Study
• User Research
• Market Rationale
Problem
With the latest scandal of Ticketmaster crashing leading to The Justice Department investigating Live Nation for anti-trust policy and the ongoing complaints from customers due to high prices, the market of live music suffers from monopolization.
Reaching Customers As Listeners
Users are able to link their Spotify, extending their Spotify and Mystix Account to intertwine personal listening and live music. Spotify Connect gathers listening history and that data to form algorithms of suggested concerts, notifications when an artist listened to is at the user’s area and allowing profiles to be represented through their Spotify account.
Solution
Create a platform treating users as dedicated fans, rather than customers. This will be delivered in a mobile application serving music fans with features supporting the behaviors of fans attending live concerts, offering reasonable prices and the limiting of high-cost resales.
Priorities Over Profit
By creating an account, you can add friends and be shown whether they could be a future concert buddy. Our app has a networking aspect to fulfill the social phenomenons of concerts (shown in the demo at the very bottom). Spotify data can also help fans in beating the queue, being a top listener of the tour artist or opener allows for higher ranking of ticket priority, allowing true fans of the music to reach presale tickets.
Transparency and Delivery
One main frustration when buying tickets is being surprised with large fees that users are revealed to at the end of their purchase, inflating their total. Our app makes the initial fees and totals visible at the start of the purchasing process, to offer full transparency. The process of purchasing tickets should come easy to all fans. Presence of filters for accommodations, restraint on resale prices, price and seating types allow for easy curation of purchases.
Providing More Than Just Tickets
By purchasing a ticket, Mystix does its best to see your purchase as a full night to enjoy rather than just a show. Our platform provides resources for easy venue entry, prospective parking, nearby restaurants, related events to attend after the show and access to scheduling an Uber to reach the venue destination to plan out the night around the concert.
Discover
How can we design a platform that builds a relationship with ticket-buyers?
Initial Brainstorm
From our team’s initial brainstorm, our team found 4 key foundations to base our design around:
The nature of the Ticket Market
Prospective Platform Initiatives for the user
Price Transparency
Validation Feedback
User Research
Interview Objectives:
Understand what place that a virtual ticket system has to its user
Establish empathy with the person being observed
Gauge interviewees opinion on potential features we want to implement to our app design
Interview Key Findings
A priority system is valid as long as the priority reaches consumers who deserve it as fans and non-resellers
Concerts should also be recognized as a social phenomenon, ticketing apps only focus on the sale of tickets
Easy navigation and validation in seat selection is a key value for ticket purchases
Users open their ticketing apps just to purchase tickets and not engage in any other browsing
“the system has the responsibility to give you information about where you will be seated, to let you know which tickets are the cheapest and which tickets are the most expensive”
“Yes, concerts are a good place to strengthen existing relationships. I wouldn’t go to concerts by myself to meet new people.”
“To get me my tickets in an efficient manner. That could include just being really transparent about pricing and seating arrangements, and not adding any unnecessary information that could crowd the page. Browsing or searching capabilities should also be really clear and well laid out.”
“If you are a big fan of an artist, you should have a better opportunity to buy tickets. It's nice to get some appreciation for the support you give to particular artists.”
“Spotify already has my music streaming data, so it’s fine. I think apps like these benefit from our data, but obviously with consent.”
Brainstorm with Interview Data
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Mei Lin, 24
Meet Mei Lin, a 24 year old Master’s International Relations Graduate Student from Beijing International Studies University. She recently moved to New York City to pursue her new job as an operations manager and wants to explore the music scene more in the city. She loves to listen to different music genres, especially American pop and r&b, and wants to attend an upcoming “The Weeknd tour” concert in New York City. She needs to figure out what ticket site sells tickets to The Weekend concert in New York and purchase it with ease.
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Emmett Marsh, 30
Emmett is a 30 year old man whose favorite thing to do is attend concerts. He lives in a new city, and does not have many friends there yet. He wants to meet and connect with people his age who also like attending concerts. he is very busy with his job as a software engineer, and needs a way to find and purchase tickets to concerts in the area, while also being able to connect with people to meet at these concerts. He needs to find a ticket site that can do this for her with ease.
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Jennifer Page, 53
Jennifer wants to buy her husband tickets to his favorite band. She has had a past over an hour at the ticket queue to then meet ticket prices of over $600. She had to wait until resale prices went down until she got a reasonable ticket with decent seats.
Design
Ideate, Prototype, Test
Low-Fidelity Prototypes and Interactive Wireframes
Interaction Testing
We tested our medium format wireframes with 9 people and received the following key feedback
Proximity prioritization
Have the search module accessible consistently, add it to the navigation bar
Over-congestion of data
should allow ticket sharing (QR code + Link) through the ticket page itself
structure and design of post should be changed (not replicate IG)
Stress on social interactions rather than having a social platform like instagram
add dedicated payment section screen
next fidelity should include individual seats to press and click on
Social aspect of the app benefits concert goers more than casual purchases
Our user testing data resulted in more dynamic screens, allowing for more features to be implemented in the final product. Our seat selection received a more feedback visualizations, allowing users to receive signifiers of seat capacity and more control over the seats they choose. We also added more options for accommodating those disabled through our filtering system. Our implementation of social networking in the product was limited, following the same model as platforms such as Letterbox and MusicBoard. Social features were most prominent in network prompts showing any connections that can result in real-life meet ups and inquiries about concert information between friends.
High Fidelity Prototype
This project showed me how to coordinate with people in the field of UX. In my past projects, I would be the only member in my team who specialized in UX design. Now being in a team with members with heavy UX backgrounds, I learned how to coordinate with other designers, take critiques on my own designs and incorporate different ideas into team products.