For this project I was bought on as one of 2 freelance UX/UI designers to plan, test & design a full end-to-end user experience. This included a full self-serve campaign creation tool and a metrics dashboard to view the metrics of their campaigns.
Client: Ticketmaster
As the lead UX designer, I had the fantastic opportunity to work on a project for an events company called Ticketmaster. Our task was to create a self-serve platform for marketers to advertise their venues and events across the Ticketmaster site. It was an exciting challenge that required a blend of creativity, empathy, and technical expertise to make it a reality.
For this project the key points I needed to consider were:
1. What pain points and challenges did we want to overcome?
2. What are the current tools being used in the self-serve campaign creation industry?
3. What jargon and best practises are people used to?
4. How to make a complicated ad creation tool simple?
5. What are the expectations of the end user?
6. What design library are we able to pull designs from in order to create the product?
7. What design components are we able to modify and reuse?
8. How will we measure success?
9. What are the 'jobs to be done'?
10. How feasible is it to build our design?
Working as a team of 2 I started by researching our competition to understand the current landscape and identify opportunities for improvement. We analysed the tools being used in the industry, jargon, and best practices that were already familiar to our target audience.
I was completely new to the Ad creation industry, so I brought myself up to speed with how it all worked, studying campaign creation videos, learning the platforms (Google, Facebook, Spotify, and countless others), all the while putting myself in the shoes of potential customers to understand how and why they use these platforms.
With a clearer understanding of the market, I moved on to formulating hypothesis ideas and mapping out user flows. This process helped me visualise the entire user journey and identify potential pain points, challenges, and opportunities to simplify the platform.
Next, I conducted interviews with potential users to gather invaluable feedback on their expectations and preferences. This user-centric approach was crucial in ensuring that our platform would resonate with its target audience and meet their needs. I gathered our data from a pool of 8 users across a range of venues & artists. Once the data was collected we turned them into actionable insights which we presented back to the client.
Next, was the information architecture. This involved working closely with the engineering team and project managers to come up with an expected flow that worked for users. This would form the foundation of our wireframes, and thus the initial flow of the journey we would take users on.
After gathering this feedback, I created wireframes to serve as a blueprint for our platform. These wireframes allowed me to iterate on the platform's layout and structure quickly, ensuring that I was on the right track. The wireframes were created to fall inline with the current design system Ticketmaster had in place. It was incredibly important that the designs I was making could actually be built by dev. Reusing components, and building on current components was vital if I was looking to optimise the build time. With the wireframes in place, I built clickable prototypes to bring the user experience to life. These prototypes enabled me to test the platform's usability, and more importantly, gather invaluable feedback from potential users.
A pool of 6-8 testers were gathered to test the initial prototypes with. 3 were in-house at Ticketmaster, with the other 5 being external marketer. This variation was essential to gather the range of feedback required to best optimise the design. I personally wrote the interview scripts, and conducted each interview. This hands-on approach was key to validating our design choices and making necessary refinements. It was a truly collaborative effort that ensured our platform was on the right path to success. We work collberatively with one of us running the sessions and the other making the notes.
I went through the process of creating wireframes, building prototypes, and testing with users two more times. With each iteration, I moved closer to achieving the perfect product that balanced simplicity with functionality. It was a gratifying experience to witness the evolution of the platform.
Once I was confident in my design, I transformed the wireframes into a full-fledged UI design. I carefully selected elements from our design library and modified or reused components as needed, ensuring a cohesive and visually appealing interface.
With the UI design finalised, I handed the project over to our talented development team.
But my work didn't stop there! I was promoted to lead designer to embark on a second phase of the project, refining and enhancing the platform even further. I returned to my initial steps of researching, gathering user feedback, and iterating on my designs, ensuring that I continued to meet the ever-changing needs and expectations of our users.
Throughout this entire journey, my passion for creating a truly user-friendly and intuitive platform never wavered. It was an incredible experience to collaborate with the Ticketmaster team and potential users, pushing myself to deliver the best possible product. The result was a platform that not only met but exceeded the expectations of the end-user, simplifying a complex process and empowering marketers to advertise their venues and events with ease and confidence.
Once all assets where completed I created a full handoff file that allowed the devs to pick up the files.
In conclusion, this project was a testament to the power of passion, collaboration, and user-centric design. By focusing on understanding and addressing the pain points and challenges faced by our users, I was able to create a platform that truly catered to their needs. As a UX designer, there's nothing more rewarding than knowing that our work has made a positive impact on the lives of our users, helping them achieve their goals and simplifying their tasks. The Ticketmaster project was an unforgettable experience and a reminder of why I love what I do.
