GAMETIME
Enhancing User Experience: Introducing a Price Tracking Feature
Gametime is a ticketing platform that specializes in providing last-minute tickets for various live events, such as sports games, concerts, theater performances, and more. Users can download the Gametime app or go online to browse through a selection of available tickets for events in their area. The primary goal of this project was to add a feature to Gametime.
Problem
Despite its reputation for user-friendly ticket purchasing and a focus on last-minute events, Gametime currently lacks a critical feature — the ability for users to track ticket pricing for events available on their platform. Without a dedicated ticket price tracking feature, users may miss opportunities to secure tickets within their budget or capitalize on potential price drops. This prevents users from making well-informed decisions and maximizing the value of their live event experiences through Gametime.
Solution
Recognizing the need for an enhanced user experience, I successfully implemented a comprehensive solution within a three-week timeframe to address Gametime's absence of a ticket price tracking feature. Users can now seamlessly sign in, customize their desired price range for event tickets, and receive real-time notifications when tickets matching their criteria become available. Users now save valuable time by eliminating the need for constant checking to see if tickets are within their price range. Instead, they can effortlessly receive notifications, ensuring they never miss an opportunity that aligns with their budget.
Project Scope
Adding a feature to an existing product
Role
UX Designer (Research, Visual Design, Interaction Design, User Testing)
Timeline
3 weeks / 2023
Platform
Figma, Lookback
Design Process
Discover
Market Research
Competitive Analysis
User Research
Define
User Persona
Affinity Mapping
How Might We
Ideate
Task Flow
Design
Low Fi Wireframes
High Fi Wireframes
Usability Testing
Final Screens
Recollect
Challenges
What I Learnt
Discover
Market Research
Increasing Demand for Price Transparency: Consumers increasingly seek transparency in ticket pricing, driven by the availability of real-time information and comparison tools across various industries.
Preference for Cost-Effective Solutions: In today's price-sensitive market, consumers prioritize platforms that offer the best value for their money. Price tracking features align with this trend by empowering users to make informed purchasing decisions.
Rising Popularity of Mobile Ticketing: With the widespread adoption of smartphones, mobile ticketing has become the preferred method for purchasing event tickets. Integrating a price tracking feature into GameTime's platform capitalizes on this trend and enhances user convenience.
Competitive Analysis
Competitors show strengths such as the ability to report the last sale, detailed charts (asks, bids, and sales) for comprehensive market insights, and a thorough price history graph with average sale prices. They also offer features like setting price monitoring alerts for specific dates, email notifications for price changes, and providing users with advice on optimal buying times. However, weaknesses in the competition include the inability to save a specific product for price change notifications or in other platforms you are not able to track general ticket prices for a specific trip destination. Notably, no major event ticketing platform currently provides a price monitoring feature, presenting a unique opportunity for Gametime to lead and differentiate itself in the market. By addressing these identified weaknesses and leveraging industry strengths, Gametime aims to offer a comprehensive and innovative ticket price tracking feature for its users.
User Research
24-46
Age Range
3
Participants
10-25
Duration (min)
17
Open-Ended Questions
Platform Preference
Users often rely on specific ticketing platforms, such as Ticketmaster, considering them as the official and trusted source for ticket purchases.
Platform Choice Factors
The choice of ticketing platform is influenced by factors like artist presence, perceived pricing fairness, and familiarity with the platform.
Price Sensitivity
Across users, there's a varying degree of sensitivity to ticket prices, with lower prices significantly influencing the decision to attend events.
Interest in Price Tracking
Users exhibit interest in tracking ticket prices, but the motivations behind this vary. Some prioritize simplicity, while others express a desire for immediate notifications.
Decision-Making Dynamics
Users demonstrate diverse decision-making processes, ranging from frequent monitoring and comparison to instant purchases based on a strong desire to attend an event.
Reservations about Resale
Users express reservations about purchasing resold tickets, citing concerns about legitimacy and trustworthiness.
Define
User Persona
As someone dedicated to understanding my audience's needs, I rely on user personas to represent key user groups. These personas help me focus on solving the most important problems for the most significant user segments. Whenever I make design choices, I refer back to my user persona to ensure that it aligns with the user's needs and goals.
Meet Alex, a 26-year-old graphic designer from Chicago who loves discovering new artists while staying within her budget.
Affinity Mapping
After conducting my research, I organized the thoughts and ideas into distinct categories within an affinity map. These groupings served as a foundation for extracting insights and identifying recurring themes, guiding the direction for subsequent steps in the design process.
How-Might-We
How might we motivate users who currently do not monitor ticket prices to consider using a ticket price tracking feature?
How might we address the perception that ticket prices for concerts are static, and inform users about potential fluctuations?
How might we simplify the process of ticket price monitoring for users who are resistant to the idea of constant checking and additional effort?
How might we cater to users attending smaller concerts with static general admission prices, providing value even when prices are consistent?
How might we establish Gametime as a trusted and official ticket source, particularly for users who currently perceive Ticketmaster as the primary official site?
How might we make the ticket price monitoring feature intuitive and user-friendly, ensuring that users find value in utilizing the feature regularly?
How might we design a feature that caters to users who exclusively buy tickets through official artist websites and redirect them seamlessly to the Gametime platform?
Ideate
Task Flow
Understanding how users would move through a task is crucial for my design process. By mapping the task flows, I can see which pages to prioritize in my design. This also helps me understand how the flow might change for different tasks, even without designing each screen separately. This way, my design can better meet user needs and expectations for different interactions.
Design
Low Fi Wireframes
I began by sketching low-fidelity wireframes to capture my ideas before transitioning to digital design.
High Fi Wireframes
I refined my ideas into high-fidelity wireframes, adding detail to the design for mobile. In these wireframes, I aimed to use design patterns from Gametime that have been successfully applied in other parts of the website. By following the existing design system, I tried to smoothly add the new feature to Gametime. This way, users will find the platform consistent and familiar while improving the overall user experience.
Usability Testing
Usability Test Plan
3 participants were interviewed remotely using Lookback
Research goals
Learn how a user navigates through the platform
Identify any areas for improvement
Check if users can go through the task flows without any assistance
Task flows
Change price range
Make notification changes and save
Success metric
How easy or difficult was this task to complete on a scale of 1-7? Metric for success is a 5 or higher
Usability Testing Summary
Two users rated the tasks a 7, while one rated it a 5.
There was confusion with the "notify me" button, because it was being perceived as a link to additional notification settings. To address this, the button was renamed to "submit" for clarity. Another identified challenge was users struggling to locate the phone number text box, prompting a color change to enhance visibility. Further, a user sought clarification on how the price graph was calculated. To provide transparency, an informational button was incorporated, allowing users to access details about the graph calculation method. Additionally, one user pointed out the absence of a statement about potential data charges when opting for text messages. This concern was promptly addressed by adding a notice about potential data charges upon selecting the text option. Overall, these user insights and revisions contribute to refining the user experience, addressing usability challenges, and enhancing overall user satisfaction with the platform.
Revisions
The feedback obtained from usability testing guided me in making necessary revisions to the design, ensuring a more user-friendly experience.
Recollect
Challenges
Completing this project had its challenges, mainly because I had to work with the existing user interface rather than create one from scratch. This meant I had to carefully consider how to add new features while still fitting in with the platform's existing look and feel. Adapting to these limitations required strategic problem-solving and creative thinking to make improvements without affecting the overall user experience.
What I Learnt
Editing an established platform taught me important lessons. I discovered that while the constraints restricted certain design freedoms, they also allowed me to focus more on optimizing user-friendliness and functionality. Rather than getting caught up by visual specifications, the focus shifted towards refining features to meet user needs seamlessly. This project also deepened my understanding of Google Inspect tools, revealing their utility in efficiently inspecting existing UI specifications. This project demonstrated the balance between innovation and constraint when enhancing existing platforms.