“Creating a ticket booking service”
for Spotify

Logo title

ROLE

Product Designer

TIMELINE

2 weeks (2022)

TOOLS

Figma, Notion, Google Suite

SCOPE

Problem
Solution

ABOUT SPOTIFY

Known by many, Spotify is one of the largest music streaming platforms with more than 527 million monthly active users.

Their success resides in their large database of 100 million songs and 5 million podcasts and its availability on most devices.

MY ROLE

I was involved in all steps of the project, with a focus on UI & coordinating the team toward our goal

OUR CHALLENGE

As a team of three, we had to tackle the following design problem given by The Design Crew:

“Spotify wants to create a ticket booking service, how would you implement it?”

The business targets were:

Spotify project

Generate revenue for Spotify,
artists, concert halls & festivals

Spotify project

Promote rising artists
to kickstart their career

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Become a key local player
within music communities

1. BENCHMARKING

Learning about the competition for inspiration and see how users are currently buying their tickets

Before prototyping anything, we had to understand where we stood.

We focused on Ticketmaster, FNAC, Dice and Shotgun as they were the most popular services to buy a concert ticket in France. They had some interesting features which inspired us and fuelled our reflection.

👥 Friends features 💺 Seatmap 📍 Geolocation 👩‍🎤 Buying flow visually
themed according to artist ▶ Suggestions from playlists
& favourite artists
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Spotify project

It was here!

Spotify project
Spotify project

At the time we worked on that project (October 2022), we noticed that Spotify had already implemented a section for live events, but without the ticket booking feature which was externalized.

Meaning?
We didn’t have to reinvent the wheel, we only had to think on how we could make it work efficiently as a ticket seller.

2. IDEATION

Generating many ideas and sorting them, in order to find the best solution for all

After drawing a mind-map with our problem statement as its center, the following 3 keywords drove our focus in finding a solution:

Fidelity

  • Build upon the user's trust into the app they use daily

  • Capitalize on the bond between the artist and its audience

Discovery

  • Finding new artists through Spotify's algorithm & recommendations

  • Listening to samples before deciding to go to a concert

  • Raising awareness of the wide range of local events

Community

  • Facilitating event sharing since concerts are moments to be shared

  • Heightening the sense of belonging to a community

  • Making it easier to buy tickets with friends

Many ideas went through our minds during brainstorming (Crazy 8, Storyboarding), we couldn't keep them all...
But sometimes, the solution lies in the discard pile.

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❌ Notifications related to the user's playlist

This has been put aside as it was deemed invasive and not engaging enough for the launch of the new ticket booking service.

Spotify project

❌ Geolocation to find nearby events

This only answers a very specific need (finding an event on short notice) and is complex to setup relative to the potential use cases that the feature would enable.

Spotify project

❌ Seat map & Being seated next to friends

This feature would be expensive to implement: it would require surveying myriads of different concert halls and partnering with them.

Spotify project

✅ Seat map & Being seated next to friends

HOWEVER letting people buy tickets close to their friends was more feasible.
This brings much needed additional value when buying tickets from Spotify, making it easy to share the event with friends and booking tickets next to them.

3. PROTOTYPING V1

Giving birth to our solution, making it tangible

Our main design constraint was to keep the Spotify touch while designing or re-working screens. Since the design system isn't available to the public, we had to emulate it from scratch.

A new user journey leading to the Live event section

  • We added a new entry to the Spotify navigation bar, leading directly to the live event.

  • A pop-up appears the first time the new version of the app is launched.

  • We also made live events more visible in the search section by making the button more prominent.

Spotify project
Spotify project

Re-working the Live event section

  • We emphasized the discovery of other artists that the user may like based on their own playlists and favourite artists by adding more categories besides “Popular near you”.

  • We added a search bar to find specific events.

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A simple way to be there with your friends

  • To give insight on what awaits the user at the concert, we added a short video of the artist performing.

  • The user can quickly see that friends are also going on this page.

  • The user can also buy tickets as usual.

Customised experience

  • If the user is already subscribed to Spotify Premium, their payment information is pre-filled to allow them to buy their ticket in one click.

  • Once the booking is confirmed, the ticket is available to the user in the Live Event section. A small notification badge appears on the day of the show.

  • Additionally, the usual options to access the ticket are available (add to Wallet, send by email, etc) so the user won't feel locked in to Spotify.

Spotify project

4. USER TESTING

Putting the prototype into the users’ hands and getting their feedback before moving onto development

With a prototype in our hands, we can test if our hypotheses are correct and find out how the experience can be improved. Lessons can be learned from this reality check.

🎯 Our goals

1

Verify affordance of the whole flow

2

Ensure users understand how booking tickets works

3

Assess the quality of the after sales experience

Method

📝 Moderated interviews 🧑‍💻 Remote (Google Meet) ⏱️ 30 min

Panel

👥 5 people
  • 2 women / 3 men
  • 28 to 33
  • Spotify usage (from daily to never)
  • Concert goer (various frequencies)

Scenario

  • As Thibault, the user has to check the page of the concert “Nonante Cinq Tour” of the artist Angèle on the 29th of October.
  • Since his friend Hugo is going, the user is asked to book a ticket.
  • Once booked, the user has to find where the ticket is.

💡 What did we learn?

Most of the experience was perceived positively:

  • No issues accessing the new Live Event section as it was well signposted (in the Homepage, in the Search section). The users had a neutral reaction to the popup as they are used to seeing such popups when they are introduced to a new feature.
  • All 5 users were able to buy their ticket without issues, however we are aware that there might be bias due to the nature of the scenario.

  • The users showed keen interest in this ticket booking service and wondered why this isn't already implemented.

🛠️ What could we improve?

After sorting the comments from the users, it would appear that they were mostly perplexed by:

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Some essential information was not available

3/5

users were confused by the lack of information
related to the artist, schedule and price

🔥 High Priority Easy fix

I am clicking on ”Buy” without any knowledge of the schedule nor the price

Ann

Spotify project

Confusing wording

3/5

users weren't sure it was a concert by Angèle,
only the concert name was shown

🔥 High Priority Easy fix

I had difficulties understanding it was a concert by Angèle. If you don't have her artist name or if you don't know her album naming, it's hard to know.

Erwan

Spotify project

3/5

users didn't know what to do with the category
information

🔥 High Priority

2/5

users wished they could see the seat map of
the concert venue

Medium Priority

Where will I be seated?

Ann

I returned to the previous screen to check the information, which... wasn't available

Charles

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Difficulty finding tickets after booking

2/5

users missed the button ”Access my tickets”

🔥 High Priority Easy fix

Sh**, I didn't see that!

Erwan

5. ITERATING ON V2

We had to prioritize which changes we wanted to make, starting with the obvious (what's easiest to fix and has a big impact). Here's the new iteration of our solution following users' feedback:

6. CONCLUSION

  • We could imagine further tests to ensure that the current solution addressed the previously reported issues.

  • Future plans could include better integration with the seat map since it is a key functionality - but also a technical challenge.

For my first project, it was humbling to see during user testing how we overlooked important issues as our attention was directed elsewhere.

Had we skipped this step and sent the prototype directly to the developers, we would have taken a great risk. A great lesson which cements why I love this job.

Thank you for your attention!

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