My Role:
- User research, current state analysis, competitive analysis, content strategy
- Wireframing and prototyping, UX/UI design
- Communication with the client
Tools:
Adobe Photoshop, Adobe XD, Canva, Miro, Figma, PureRef, Office Suite
UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM
Problem Definition
Sometimes classical music is mistakenly seen as a boring subject, especially by younger demographics. Our goal was to present Elora Festival in a way that increases the interest in the event as well as brings a younger audience. Additionally, there was a need to redesign and reorganize the existing website to achieve a more professional look and smoother user experience.
Problem Solution
Our team carefully evaluated the current state of the website and planned the necessary changes.
First of all, we saw the opportunity in simplifying the content structure and making the user journey quicker and more intuitive. To achieve that, we reduced the amount of information and enriched the content with supporting visuals such as icons and event photos. For a better visual representation of the festival, we developed a new color palette and changed fonts and graphic styles throughout the website.
UNDERSTANDING THE USER
Current state analysis
The website contained a lot of useful information about the festival. All we needed to do was to simplify it and find a way to deliver all that information in an entertaining form, as well as to make it easily accessible. We moved around some of the sections, played with titles and subheadings, removed unnecessary data, and restructured the navigation menu.
Here is the site map we developed:
User Surveys
User surveys are the key to understanding the users, their pain points, and their desired experiences. Before developing a questionnaire we conducted thorough user research online and studied the materials on music festivals. Then we came to our users and asked what would they expect from a music festival website and what experience would best cater to their needs.
Personas
Based on the research and user surveys we developed several personas to best represent users' needs and goals as well as their frustrations.
Customer insights
To sum it up, we defined the main user expectations from a music festival website. Those were shortlisted into the top three:
1. Well-designed and easy-to-navigate platform
2. Quick and convenient online purchasing
3. Clear festival program description and a good understanding of what to expect
User Journeys
Below you can see how Mike navigates through the website and achieves his goals.
DESIGNING WITH PURPOSE
The design stage was crucial as visuals play a significant role in the representation of the festival. Our goal was to develop a website that looked entertaining and stylish. We achieved a harmonized and appealing look by changing the color palette to something less saturated. Sans serif font Muli organically completed the visual style, in addition, to carefully developed hover effects and animations. Finding the balance between text blocks and images was necessary to visually unload the website and add more negative space for a better user journey experience.
Below you can see the stylesheet and how we applied it to the final design of the prototype.
Here are some of the screens I developed for the high-fidelity prototype of the Elora Festival website.
BRINGING IT TO LIFE
Feel free to click the button below to access a mobile version of the working prototype of the Elora Festival website.
TO SUMMARIZE
It was an exciting project for our team as we had an opportunity to closely work with the client, whose product inspired and motivated us. But it was not an easy journey. The biggest challenge I faced throughout this project was balancing moving forward with deliverables while collaborating with the team. I needed to communicate with team members working in multiple time zones. Another challenge was managing client feedback and making the right changes, but I believe as a team we handled that with success. We received great feedback from our clients as they found our solutions valuable and helpful for the future development of the Elora Festival's online presence.
