Redesigning the Festival Experience

As a frequent festival goer, I have used the Insomniac App for all the information I need for events, and as a user, I had my own positive and negative experiences. Though I had my own pain points, I reached out to the dance music and festival community to discover what they love, dislike, and need from the the app. After uncovering their pain points and frustrations, I reimagined the Insomniac App to improve the way we discover and prepare for festivals.

The Challenge

• Discover the most frequent frustrations and pain points users face while using the Insomniac App

• Establish user needs that aren’t being met by the current iteration of the app

• Redesign the app to address those frustrations and needs while keeping it familiar enough to the old version.

My Role

• UI Designer

Duration

• One Month

Tools Used

• Figma

• Ballpark

How Can I Address These Issues?

I wasn’t sure how to approach login issues from a UI/UX perspective. Because the frustrations revolved around constantly being logged out and prompted to log back in, I decided that the simplest solution would be to make all these features available without an account. I could then focus on the other pain points: creating a more optimal view of set times and a solution around offline access for important information during events. Before creating any designs, I wanted to see how the competitors were doing, so I took a look at the apps for Tomorrowland and CRSSD festivals.

Both had more optimal views of set times that used the screen space more effectively, but neither had any offline capability or ways to save information (besides manually taking screenshots).

Testing Two Different Prototypes

I ended up creating two different versions for the grid view of set times - one with artists’ images and one with only text. Which one would users prefer? Would artists’ images help when trying to look through a schedule? Unable to decide, I used Ballpark to conduct an unsupervised preference test as well as a quick survey to determine how recognizable artists are by their pictures.

I instructed users to interact with each prototype as they normally would with the Insomniac App and rate ease of use. I also asked if artist pictures helped them find sets more easily and asked open-ended questions about any confusion or difficulties they encountered.

I also wanted to test how recognizable artists are, so I asked users to identify eight different artists from the 2022 EDC Orlando lineup from only their pictures.

Interpreting the Results:

Despite reaching out to many potential users, I unfortunately only received five responses. Though these results could not be an accurate representation of the audience as a whole, there were some interesting and valid issues to address:

• Creating more space: I hadn’t considered how sets under 1 hour would look, but they ended up being cramped. I reformatted the grids, making each cell bigger so that shorter sets would still have breathing room.

• Confusion over intermissions in Kinetic Field: Similar to the previous issue, it was tricky creating enough space for the 3-6 minute intermissions in the grid format. Initially just thin slots in between the main sets, users were understandably confused about what they were. I made them proportionally larger while reformatting the grid layout, adding just enough room to add labels. They are still fairly small, but users will at least know what they are, and in both list and downloadable image layouts, they have their own dedicated time slots.

• Importance of artists’ pictures: Users reported finding artists’ pictures helpful while navigating set times. Interestingly though, they correctly identified the given artists (who are more well-known and usually headlining festivals) only 42.5% of the time. So while it can be argued that portraits aren’t as necessary, the layout with pictures required a minimal amount of space (around 200px) more than the text-only layout, so I chose to include images.

Challenges and Future Plans

Despite this being a relatively straightforward redesign process, there were some challenges and limitations:

• Only one side of the big picture: I redesigned this map on behalf of users, addressing their needs and frustrations. Because this is an already existing app for a company I am not affiliated with, there certainly may be business goals that I could not address or take into account.

• How to address login issues: Users reported being most frustrated with logging in and out. Besides removing the frequent login notifications and popups, it was difficult to resolve this issue from a UI/UX perspective. The solution I used was definitely an oversimplification, so I would love to connect with any developers who might be able to offer their thoughts and expertise.

• Limited references: Set times were only available for around week on the app. After the event ended, the entire page would be taken down and inaccessible. I took as many reference screenshots as I could, but there was some missing information (more screenshots of set times, experiences, etc) that would have helped during the design process.

• Balancing use of screen space: It was a challenge to format the 45-minute sets and 3-6 minute intermissions with adequate room without making the entire grid layout too big to easily navigate. The intermissions still feel cramped with text, so this is still an existing issue I would like to revisit.

• Limited user testing: Because there were only five users who tested the prototype, I was initially hesitant to completely rely on testing. Fortunately, the testers faced consistent usability issues, so I felt confident using the results to guide my revisions and design choices.

As a frequent festival attendee, I particularly enjoyed working to improve an app I use and connect with others who share the same passion for dance music. I would love to continue this process and collaborate with others to improve the rest of the app and see where this can take us. Thank you!