Context.

The first social platform helping people find others to go to music events with and discover music events around them.

Inspired by my personal experience of having to skip out on a fair share of concerts due to my fear of going alone.

DISCIPLINE User Research, Interviews, Analysis・Brand Creation・Low, Mid and Hi-fidelity Prototyping・ Usability Testing

TIMELINE 6 weeks

TEAM Individual

TOOLS Figma, Whimsical, Maze

There is currently no app on the market that connects concert and festival goers, especially those who have no one to go with.

Some individuals skip out on live music experiences when they don’t have anyone to go with - I am guilty of this! Some desire to meet people with similar music taste and wish they had a way to meet others at music events. A lot of people also just want to share live music experiences with others, but there is no online platform to help with this.

How might we make it easy for individuals to connect with other concert/festival-goers, and make the live music experience social?

Solution.

Research.

ANALYZING THE MARKET

The competition did not have a social or interactive aspect to help users find and connect with others attending the same music events.

Simply put, there was no direct competition. I analyzed two of the most popular music event apps on the market and three very well-known social setup apps. Songkick and Bandsintown had great event discoverability features, but no in-app interactive features for users. Bumble BFF revolves around helping people make friends, but discoverability is limited to matches and there is no way to filter or match based on more specific criteria. Meetup is the most direct competitor but has little to no options to find others to go to music events with.

DETERMINING THE NEED AND INTEREST

I had found a gap in the market for a potential solution - that was the first step. Then, I also wanted to know

Is not having anyone to go to music events with an actual problem?

I asked 21 survey respondents and 3 interviewees, all whom had attended at least one live music event in their life, and the people of Reddit: “Would you go to a music event by yourself?” The results:

In sum, the majority of people would either never go by themselves or wouldn’t go solo, depending on the music event.

**There were also two main concerns about going solo to music events: safety and comfort.**

I took note of these key findings when drafting questions for the research survey and interviews. I wanted to dive deeper and understand the potential need for this app, the objectives, and the challenges of what Amplify could and should be for users.

DIVING DEEPER

Although it was clear that people sometimes need help finding a buddy to go to these events with, I wanted to understand whether an app like this is actually needed or wanted. I also wanted to understand people’s motivations behind wanting to find others to go to music events with, identify preferences for searching and selecting matches and identify how an app like this would be used and most helpful to potential users. Some key findings:

It turns out the hypothesis was proven! A large majority of people would not attend music events by themselves, and 90% would use a social app to help them find others to go with, regardless of whether the person likes or dislikes going solo.

It was surprising to see that people were not only interested in finding people, but also discovering music events and related information. Additionally, there was a lot of enthusiasm about being able to see people’s profiles, particularly being able to see others’ music taste and events they are attending. Along with this, 80% of participants wanted in-app messaging to talk and plan. This informed me that

This would not just be a typical match or 'directory ’-based app — people were interested in an all-around music social app.

The biggest pain point was safety. People prefer to go to music events with people they are comfortable and feel safe with. Given that the concept of this social app is to encourage users to meet-up with others, 95% of participants were concerned for how safety would addressed and ensured.

THREE KEY CHALLENGES

Create a user experience that ensures safety and allows individuals to find, connect, plan, and ultimately meet with others.

THE GOAL

There were two clear personas:

The ‘More-the-Merrier’ individual, like Dominic: Goes to music events solo or accompanied but wants to meet others with similar music taste and share the experience with
The ‘Needs-a-Buddy’ individual, like Andrea: Would never go to a music event by themselves and needs an app like this to prevent missing another event

USER PERSONAS

Based on key pain points and needs, I made low, mid, and high-fidelity wireframes iterations and created the basis of Amplify’s brand and visual identity.

Ideating.

A lot of my sketches were inspired by competitors I had analysed earlier. I began mapping out the key flows and features while keeping two things in mind: every step needed to be personalized to the user and be as simple as possible. I gradually iterated my designs based on peer and mentor feedback until the mid-fidelity screens on Whimsical more closely reflected what the high-fidelity prototype would look like.

ITERATION 1: LOW-FI SKETCHES

Onboarding
Inspired by competitors I had analyzed earlier, I wanted the profile creation path to be linear for easy, intuitive navigation. Some questions and sections like ‘Music DNA’ were created to give users a personalized music-focused profile which, as research suggested, users wanted.
Onboarding Pt. 2
At the end of onboarding, users are given the option to verify their profile by adding a form of identification to ensure user safety, a big concern for users.
Discovering
The challenge here was how to make the discover process easy and personalized. The original thought was that users should RSVP to an event first before finding a group or person to go to an event with.
Messaging
Research suggested that 80% users prefer to communicate via a chat, and about 40% also wanted the option to video call others. The original idea was to have the ‘Messages’ tab to be a place to communicate and plan.

ITERATION 2+: MID-FI WIREFRAMES

Once I started to connect screens, I got a good understanding of how users would navigate through the app and what features I needed to continue to improve. There were three key flows that needed to be tested.

Designing the

Amplify brand

I wanted the visual identity and brand to reflect its core musical essence - it needed to be vibrant, fun, electric and casual.

I used native iOS components to build out a timely and consistent mobile design - this was the foundation of the final Amplify prototype.

Prototyping and Testing.

After numerous iterations and establishing a style guide, I prototyped three main flows for Amplify through Figma. I wanted to:

Identify whether users could intuitively navigate the app and understand the purpose of each screen
Identify whether users could successfully discover music events and find others to go to music events with
Determine whether users feel comfortable and secure enough to (1) use the app to chat and find others and (2) be willing to meet up with them
Discover any pain points, opportunities, or needs in the design of the new feature