Cap House Festival Home Screen
Cap House Festival:
Charity House Music Festival Gets a Renovation to Drive Attendance and Donations
For link to Figma prototype, click here.
Responsibilities:
User Research
UX Design Strategy
UX Writing
Project Context:
10 Day Design Sprint
Team of 3 UX/UI Designers
Mobile-First, Web Redesign Project
I led research and worked on end-to-end processes from research, analysis, design strategy through iteration.
I also wrote copy, microcopy, and content.
THE PROBLEM
The overwhelming amount of visuals and text, plus the cluttered content of the site, makes it hard for users to find the information they need to attend the event.
The result is lagging ticket sales and donations to the charity the event benefits.
What we started with:
Inconsistent branding and messaging
Event info was buried in a wall of text
Artist bios were dense and hard to read
Few opportunities to fundraise for the charity without selling tickets
The effect was:
Users didn’t have the confidence to donate to the charity or attend the event because the site looked untrustworthy
Users were unwilling to spend money on a ticket because they questioned whether the ticket sale was legitimate
Users had problems locating the event dates and purchase options because of the density of web copy and the site’s information architecture
THE SOLUTION
Align the site’s content and copy with standard of reputable charities to give attendees and donors the confidence donate and spend money on the cause.
A responsive, mobile-first approach to the project
A dynamic, unified website design
Streamlined copy to establish mission, branding, and messaging,
Special attention to the site’s information architecture for discoverability
Socialized sharing to drive attendance
We added:
RESEARCH
Electronic Digital Music (EDM) and its Fans:
Triangulation of primary and secondary data
We used a combination of academic research, market research, and user data, to make design decisions for our product.
Here’s what we did, what we found, and how we used that information:
Triangulation of data
Decision: Mobile First
“EDM Fans are hyper-active in their social media usage. There is a tremendous amount of conversation during EDM concerts, which brands can use to great effect.”
We learned that our users are hyper-social, and rely on their phones for a mobile experience during festivals. EDM fans prefer mobile over desktop when purchasing tickets, researching, and getting online.
Based on the research on who our users are and where they would be accessing the site, we opted for a mobile first, responsive web approach.
Decision: Social Drivers
“Many of the positive drivers of music festival conversation are anticipatory in nature, such as announcements of a ticket purchase or excitement about the lineup of an event.”
We added opportunities to share at multiple touch points in the user journey, from event details, to purchase and donations, to artist bios and lineup information.
Decision: VIP Packages
“Eventbrite estimates that VIP experiences account for a sizeable chunk of money —10% of ticket sales—and generate approximately 25% of revenue.”
Based on this research, competitive analysis, and user interviews, we added VIP packages to drive fundraising for the charity. Music festivals are increasingly viewed as experiences, rather than entertainment. This brings the event in line with competitors and drives donations.
Decision: Appeal to local fans, volunteers, and sponsors
“The majority of a one-venue festivals attendees are still within the home city or state. ”
We added an appeal to local users who have the potential to volunteer, donate frequently to a community-based charity, and attend a series of future events for the organization.
It also confirmed our decision to forgo a native app design for a mobile-first strategy, since users did not have to navigate extensive, multi-stage offerings, vendors, lodging, or an exclusive ecosphere.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
We compared local and nationally attended EDM festival music sites. We found there were distinct differences in features between the two:
Multi-day festivals were more immersive with a multitude of experiential events, a variety of experience packages, enhanced social media, and native apps, in addition to more interactive websites.
Local events chose a mobile-first approach, a moderate amount of add-on offerings, merchandise, and moderate social media capabilities.
Both types of events tended to have expressive, artistic logos with bright colors and psychedelic imagery, digital flyers, artist lineups and information, and third party ticket purchase.
USER INTERVIEWS
We interviewed 10 EDM fans who attend festival events.
Here’s what they had to say:
RESEARCH FOCUS
Our team wanted to find out two main things to understand the user’s goals:
What motivates EDM fans to attend festival events?
What behaviors and attitudes do EDM fans have in regard to charity and non-profit giving?
MAIN INSIGHTS
Here’s what we found out by surveying 40 users:
Music goers want to know that their money is going to a reputable charity that supports causes that they believe in.
They prioritize an easy purchase process, clear redirects to a reputable ticketing site, and clear events details.
We found that 64% of users went to events primarily for the music. The charitable cause was important to 56% of users.
80% of users reported that they would not go to an event for a cause they did not support.
Motivation: Why do EDM fans attend festivals? Is it purely for the music, or will they attend based solely on the charity it supports?
Behavior: Do EDM Fans support and attend events for charity generally?
We used this research to make design decisions to:
Elevate the event itself over the charity
Professionalize the site design design to align with user expectations about music festivals and charity orgs
Rewrite copy of the site to estable credibility and align user motivation about charity giving
CONTENT DESIGN
We performed a content audit of the existing site and produced a content inventory. We weeded out repetitive information and consolidated text for at-a-glance recognition of essential details.
During our user interviews, we learned that users didn’t want to purchase merchandise online. Users preferred to buy merchandise at an event as a memento of the occasion. This trend was backed up in the research, as users liked to revisit events via social media and remembrances.
It felt counter-intuitive, but we removed the merchandise page from the site, as it degraded the experience and profitability of selling merchandise at the event itself.
After consolidating areas of interest for global navigation, we performed a card sort with users. This revised information architecture helped users navigate our end product more efficiently.
We wrote a press release for the event for easy sharing by local press and other promotional outlets.
TESTING + IMPROVEMENTS
Change 1
Usability testing revealed that users were confused when comparing ticket options. Our users referred us to online ticketing used by travel sites to compare across options.
We redesigned the information into an easy to read grid for comparison.
Change 2
Usability testing revealed that users were confused by the “pay what you wish” ticketing. The event was promoted as a free event, but the ticket options started at $1.
This made users distrust the process, so we added a clear comparison to our redesign at the very top of the chart.
Change 3
Users were alarmed when they were rerouted to a third party ticket site. It gave them the feeling that the process was out of their control.
We solved this by adding the use of modals, which asked for user consent to led to another site.
Change 4
Usability testing revealed that users could not locate options to volunteer or donate under the umbrella term “Mission”.
We made a broader category “How can you help?” where clear options are available to choose from.
Change 5
Users were confused by having two options on one screen, and one below the fold.
We separated the options into two separate pages and moved the volunteer button above the fold for quick discovery.
FINAL PRODUCT
We explored a variety of layouts and features based on our user research and competitive analysis and determined that our homepage should feature a digital flyer of the event that showcased the featured artists. We then created an image-based index of cards of the artists’ images.
Because easy access to ticketing was an important part of buyer motivation, we included purchase” ticket buttons at strategic locations through the design.
We then created an image-based index of cards of the artists’ images.
STYLE GUIDE
Some call festivals ‘therapy’ while others call it an escape from reality, but the overall message is PLUR, which means “peace, love, unity, respect.”
We kept the existing color scheme, imagery, and logos associated with the festival and the charity organization, but modified the colors based on accessibility guidelines to make sure it earned a minimum AA accessibility rating.
Using the PLUR values, we were inspired to create a color scheme that incorporated the existing brand colors, with a range of tranquil teals to communicate a sense of peacefulness. Orange punctuates the teal for a vibrant, earthy contrast used for CTAs. Ink blue provides a secondary CTA color, the logo and text.
We selected Bungee as the header typeface, with its fun with bold strokes and paired it with Montserrat, a highly readable body text.
LINK TO FIGMA FILE
CONCLUSIONS + LESSONS LEARNED
This project offered a solid case for “content first” design. Content and UX go hand-in-hand, so considering the content early in our process was important. It’s about content and design working together.
Using content to define the layout and design elements.
We didn’t get all the content done before starting on the design, but we started with a definite sense of what we were designing with, and how we would engage the user.
Considering all channels and formats upfront.
This was really an essential consideration for this project. Knowing where, when, and why users would be interacting with the product helped clarify our decision making and gave us the direction to move forward in a strategic way.
'Sketching with Words'.
We started with bullet-points and simple language to outline the framework for our content, and built it from there. We replaced porto-content and any non-contextual placeholder text such as Lorem Ipsum. Without this approach, our usability testing would have fallen flat.
Triangulation of data.
Based on my academic experience, I would never recommend beginning a project without enough data to at least form a thesis. I carried this ethos forward to our design strategy. Although we didn’t have the reach to survey and research a population of thousands, we didn’t have to. It was available for us to review and learn from. It made the design process less risky and design decisions easier to justify.
NEXT STEPS
Add experiences- Millennials are driving the experience industry with almost 80% of them stating that they would rather spend money on desirable experiences or events over buying physical products.
Add livestream and enhanced social media- Studies and users suggest that EDM fans are uniquely receptive to reliving their experiences through event live streams, particularly if such streams can be optimized for the mobile devices that they overwhelmingly use.
Recurring donations- Using their mailing list, CapHouse can request money before, during, and after an event based on good will, CapHouse would benefit from donations in small dollar amounts over time.
Text to donate- Because users are inclined to use their mobile phones primarily, CapHouse would benefit from Text-to-Donate capabilities, especially during and immediately after an event.
CITATIONS
Eventbrite. (2013). New Trends Impacting Festival and Consumer Events. https://eventbrite-s3.s3.amazonaws.com/marketing/britepapers/Britepaper_6newtrends_webVersion.pdf
Eventbrite. (2014). The EDM Audience Analysis. https://eventbrite-s3.s3.amazonaws.com/marketing/britepapers/Eventbrite_EDM_Social_Media_Listening_Project.pdf
Eventbrite & Mashwork. (2014). Music Festival Study. Mashwork, Inc. https://eventbrite-s3.s3.amazonaws.com/marketing/MusicFestivalResearch/EventbriteStudyMusicFestivals8_25_14.pdf