Portfolio
Big Fun Festival
Portfolio
Overview
About Big Fun Festival
Big Fun Festival is a Manitoban/local music festival featuring Canadian artists in the indie-rock, pop, hip-hop, and folk genres. They are aimed at 20 to 30-year-olds who like discovering underground musicians and is a well-known and beloved event in Manitoba.
About
Project Summary
I tackled UX/UI design with WordPress and interactivity development. The original website’s blog format posed UX issues; it only featured the most recent posts instead of surfacing items visitors would be looking for. I aimed to create a fun and creative promotional website where users can easily view the artist line-up and purchase tickets.
My approach began with an internal UX and competitive analysis. This allowed me to pinpoint a main target user. I used this research to propose improvements to meet the needs of this specific user.
My involvement included analyzing the current website’s usability, identifying a target user, creating high-fidelity designs for desktop & mobile, and coding a live demo site using WordPress.
Project Goals
The proposed outcomes of my redesign included:
- Helping boost ticket sales
- Increasing brand awareness and loyalty
- Promoting its uniqueness within the industry
My Role
Roles & Responsibilities
UX/UI and Graphic Design | High-Fidelity Designs | UX Analysis | Competitive Analysis | HTML, CSS, Javascript & PHP Coding
Tools Used
Sketch | Adobe Photoshop | WordPress | Hestia Lite Template | Child Theme build
Brand & Style Guide
Research
Research Summary
Beginning with internal research on Big Fun Festival, a competitive analysis, and a UX/UI website analysis, I defined user pain points for Target Audience A - Kara, The Music Explorer as the main user for this redesign.
Findings
Target Audience A
Kara, The Music Explorer - Kara loves the local music scene. She attends three to five music festivals a year. She likes discovering new bands and hanging out with her friends. She’s tech-savvy and appreciates when purchasing tickets is fast and easy.
User Story
As a young adult who frequently goes to shows and is passionate about the local music scene, Kara wants to easily stay up-to-date with new artists coming to town, quickly purchase show tickets, and monitor the festival's artist line-ups.
User Behaviours
Motivations
• Is motivated by funky, and unique branding
• Wants a clean yet informative website where she can quickly purchase tickets
User Pains
• Searching through multiple page levels to find festival or artist information
• Having to search through website to buy tickets
• Finding up-to-date artist line-ups, promotional videos, and festival updates
User Goals
• Getting a sneak peek at what the festival is like through promotional videos and photos
• Quickly purchasing tickets
• Easily view updated artist line-ups and festival schedules
"I go to so many shows a year! I love the excitement, but sometimes it feels like a scavenger hunt just to buy tickets!"
- Kara, The Music Explorer
Competitive Analysis
My competitive analysis included analyzing two direct competitors. These were other well-known and large-scale festivals that Kara would likely also be going to to hear and see great live music.
Competitor 1
Winnipeg Folk Festival
Direct Competitor
Winnipeg Folk Festival is a large summer music festival that features mainstream acts alongside indie and underground musicians from all around the world. It’s been operating for 50 years and is a well-known festival in Manitoba.
Strengths
• Biggest festival in Manitoba
• Features international acts as well as independent artists
• Tickets page is informative and features price-point breakdowns
• Homepage is organized and features several prompts to purchase tickets
Weaknesses
• Homepage also promotes other concerts, which could be confusing to new users just wanting to purchase festival tickets
• Includes prompts to view artist line-ups despite not being available yet
• Several layers of informational pages could be daunting to search through
Competitor 2
The TD Winnipeg International Jazz Festival
Direct Competitor
The TD Winnipeg International Jazz Festival is an annual music event featuring world-renowned musicians and independent artists in the jazz, R&B, pop, and soul genres. It's been operating for decades and is one of Manitoba’s largest music festivals.
Strengths
• Well-known among Manitobans
• Features international and local artists
• Homepage is clean, and minimal with up-to-date content
• Users are immediately prompted to purchase tickets
• Features several CTAs to purchase tickets throughout site
Weaknesses
• Homepage is in a blog format, which could make finding ticket information hard
• Sponsor logos are large and take up a lot of website real estate, especially on mobile
• Tickets page is in an unorganized blog format and has a lot of copy cluttering the page
• Ticket CTAs vary from page to page; doesn't look cohesive
Design
Design Thinking Summary
The proposed design aimed to address Kara’s pain points with the current Big Fun Festival website:
- Having to search through multiple pages of blog format posts to find artist information
- Scrolling or going through the menu to find where to buy tickets
- Lack of a search bar component
The proposed design also aimed at increasing brand awareness and loyalty by promoting its playful nature and why it’s unique to all the other local festivals.
UX/UI Changes
Problem Statement
Kara is a young adult looking to purchase tickets to Big Fun Festival. She wants a quick way to do that and an easy way to share information about the festival to convince her friends to tag along. She’s open to searching through the site, but currently, she has to scroll through multiple pages to find what she’s looking for.
UX/UI Improvements
- Ticket Purchase CTA at the very top and multiple ticket CTAs throughout
- Smaller footprint of the latest news widget
- Interactive artist line-up to encapsulate the fun and youthfulness of the festival
- Implementation of a video player to showcase festival previews and promotional videos
- Menu as a top sticky bar for quick and constant access
Business needs
Improvements to Attain Business Goals
- Promote Festival Information: Easily allow users to find the event summary, and dates and to purchase tickets
- Brand Awareness: The addition of various festival images, purple accents, and interactivity illustrates the fun, youthful atmosphere that the festival emulates.
- Information Architecture: Reorganize site information with pops of colour that both help visually separate key components and incite excitement.
Conclusion
Final Thoughts
By analyzing the Big Fun Festival website on desktop & mobile as well as other competitors, I defined and designed several points for improvement. During this research, I defined a main target user for the website – Kara, The Music Explorer. Seeing the site through Kara’s eyes, I created a homepage redesign to address her pain points and create a fun and interactive experience that can meet the needs of this subset of customers.