North Bay Live Music Website Redesign
2023
Role: UX Designer.
Overview:
Revamping a Local Bay Area music event website with focus on improving user experience and UI for users to more effectively locate local live music and bands.
Design Process
User Research
Stakeholder Interview
Project proposal
Proto Persona
User Interviews
Affinity Diagram
Empathy Map
Problem Definition
Competitor Analysis
Task Flow
Story Board
Site Map
Prioritization Matrix
Prototyping
Sketches
Low Fidelity
Mid Fidelity
High Fidelity
Iterations
Usability Testing
A/B Testing
Process Testing data
Identify Improvements
Design Principles:
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User-Centered Approach: The design process was driven by user research, including stakeholder interviews, user interviews, and empathy mapping, to understand the needs and pain points of target users like Jerry Newton, a data analyst who enjoys live music and dancing.
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Accessibility and User-Friendliness: The primary focus was to make the website more accessible and user-friendly. This involved improving the UI, adding features like search functions, and making information easily scannable and clickable to enhance the overall user experience.
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Task Flow Optimization: To address the problem of users dropping off the site, the design team identified the most popular task flow and made it more accessible and efficient, allowing users to find local events and bands more effortlessly.
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Usability Testing and Iterations: Throughout the design process, usability testing, A/B testing, and iterative improvements were conducted to identify pain points and make necessary adjustments to the interface based on user feedback.
Design Constraints:
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Stakeholder Goals: The design had to align with the stakeholder's objectives of increasing user engagement, building trust with users, bands, and venues, and making the service more widely known.
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Demographic Considerations: The target demographic for the website redesign was Bay Area residents between 23 to 30 years old who were music enthusiasts. The design had to cater to their preferences, needs, and technological capabilities.
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Competitor Analysis: We analyzed competitor websites to ensure that the redesigned site met industry standards and included features that would make it stand out and appeal to users.
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Overall, the redesign aimed to create a user-centric platform that would allow music enthusiasts like Jerry to easily discover new local artists, venues, and gigs in their area, fostering a thriving live music community in the northern bay area.
Problem
While North Bay Live Music offers users the largest data base of local bands and venues in the north bay area, it has a hard time keeping users on the site.
Solution
By Improving the site’s UI and making the most popular task flow more accessible and user friendly, more users will use the service to find more local events and bands
Stakeholder Interview Insights
Hello
Meet Jerry Newton, 28
Goals & Needs
Find a way to filter out the genres of music he doesn’t like
Go out and find new bands playing near him. Meet new people and go out dancing. Help support local musicians
Pain Points/ Potential Solutions

He doesn't like when he goes out to a venue and discovers that the band plays classical pieces
He has to spend a lot of time search for live music events.
Find a place where Jerry can find information on what bands are playing / what genre music they play so that he doesn't waste his money on a ticket


Demographics & Behavior
Jerry is very outgoing, likes meeting new friends
Jerry is a data analyst
single
Enjoys spending his weekends dancing
Listen to live music
Doesn’t like classical music




User Interviews
8 Interviewees
Bay Area Residents
23-30 Years Old
People don’t know how to find out about live music events outside of Social media or word of mouth
“I enjoy having drinks with friends, and dancing”
Insights
“I hear about music events through friends or social media”
Frustrated
with how long it took them to scroll to a specific gig on any specific day
Usability Testing on Current Site
Users were unaware of search function because the colors are not accessible
Users wished
Artist bio was more easily scannable & offered Music to listen to
Photos of venue instead of only a map
Music enthusiasts need a user-friendly and accessible service that can help them discover new local bands and events in their area, because many people reported that they were unsure on how to find live music.
User Centered Problem Statement
We believe improving this website would help music enthusiasts to explore and find new local artists, venues, and gigs in their area, while also receiving recommendations for upcoming events to enjoy live music experiences with their friends
User Flow
Initial Sketches
Competitor Analysis
7 Participants
Bay Area Residents
23-30 Years Old
Usability Testing
Accessibility
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Added Arrows to Homepage's Caroseoul of Pictures
Aesthetics
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Improved Color Schemes
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Resized Homepage's Banner
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Reformatted Artist's Biography Section
Recognition
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Added Underline for user's understanding of clickable links
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Renamed Headings:
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"Featured Artist" to "Weekly Featured Artists"
We conducted usability testing to identify users top pain points when going through our task flow of find a local event on North bay live music. we then analyzed our findings and iterated our prototype to address the top issues users mentioned in our tests.
A/B Testing
for Color Scheme
A
50 Participants
Bay Area Residents
23-35 Years Old
B
20%
80%
Key-Takeaways
Included additional info on services NBLM offers to help users know what they can do on the site
Updated Information
Upgraded Features
UI Facelift
Include additional visuals by adding carousels of events and venues to match industry standards
Redesigned the UI based on our research findings to make the site more user friendly and accessible