Coachella Music Festival App

Maximizing party time through mobile solutions.

My Scope

UX Design
UX Research
UI Design
Prototyping

The Team

Product Designer - Me
UX Academy Mentor - Peter Ndirpaya

Tools

Figma, Google Suite, MilaNote, Procreate

Background

Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival welcomes in about 125,000 festival goers each day for 2 weekends every spring. Attendees from all over the world flock to the desert in hopes of catching their favorite and most anticipated music artists while sharing the moments with close friends, family, or new friends met along the way. Although the weekend is meant to be filled to the brim with activities, Coachella goers oftentimes do not live up to their weekend’s fun-filled expectations due to fatigue, misinformation, or getting caught up in a blissful moment, ultimately causing some to miss out on moments they’ve looked forward to all year. The event's large scale makes it understandable that cell service can be challenging to access. This can lead to frustrations since many festival attendees depend on their phones for multiple reasons, such as communication and navigation. Coachella tickets range from $499 to $1200, and while that price is continuing to rise each year, it seems that the amenities for folks have not changed.

Design Process

Discover

Research Objectives

Identify pain points of Coachella attendees, and why they occur.
Create a better understanding of the behaviors of Coachella attendees to promote a seamless and efficient experience

User Surveys

In order to capture the best insight of the festival, I crafted a survey for participants who have attended at least 1 weekend of Coachella. After posting on my social platforms I gathered 31 participants. Here were the key points from my research:

42% of of participants attended the festival with 15+ people or more
49% of people plan their Coachella weekend at least 6 months in advance
82% of people use the Coachella App throughout the weekend

Of that 82% of users who use the Coachella App

100% indicated they use the app to look at set times
81% said they use the app to look at the festival map

User Interviews

In an attempt to gather the most valuable insight on Coachella and it's app users, I interviewed 4 people who have attended Coachella between 3 - 9 times. The 1-1 sessions I had with each participant furthered my understanding for user pain points. Here are my key findings:

They all did not use the app in their past experiences inside of the festival.
Although losing cell service and trying to contact your friends seems troubling, you seem to get over it over time.
Basic needs must be met, so that means the schedule and expectations must be flexible.

Define

How Might We Statements

Through my understanding of the challenges user's face with the Coachella app, I was able to create the following How Might We statements that would remain at the core of my design decisions.

User Personas

From all of my research, and with my HMW statements in mind I was able to immerse myself within the headspace of the user. I developed 3 personas that captured the range of detail and insight I gained from my discovery process.

Feature List

With my personas at center of my design thinking, I came up with a list of priority features that would enchance the overall user experience with the app.

Develop

Site Map

To address key challenges from my research, ensuring a user-centered and intuitive app experience, I created this SiteMap. The structure prioritizes my features and maps out the ways my screens should connect.

Low-Fidelity Wireframes

Next, I translated my ideas into visual solutions through sketches.

High-Fidelity Wireframes

From my sketches, I was able to come up with visual solutions through High-Fidelity Wireframes.

User-Testing

Next, I conducted user testing with 5 participants. I tested two task flows: 1) locating and interacting with the map to find the desired stage and set, and 2) completing a mobile order. Users were asked to rate the difficulty of each flow on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being difficult and 5 being easy. Flow 1 received an average rating of 4.7/5, while Flow 2 achieved a perfect 5/5 rating, indicating overall satisfaction with both processes.

Iterate

I felt that the feedback gained from Usability Testing was valuable and pointed out features that I felt were a nice touch to my task flows. Here are the solutions I came up with.

Interactive Map

My user interviews revealed concerns about first-time Coachella attendees struggling to locate basic necessities without experienced friends or prior festival experience. To address this, I designed an interactive map that clearly highlights essential amenities like Water Refill Stations.

Pick-Up Screen
and Modal

I added a Mobile Pick-Up screen and modal for folks to not lose track of their Mobile Order purchase. When you're inside the festival, you don’t have time to wait around and stare at your phone until an order is ready, with the revisions made I reimagined how it might look when an attendee opens back up the app to pull up their mobile order receipt.

On-Now! Animation

In order to differentiate between upcoming sets and sets that were playing right now, I added a highlighting animation to notify the user for sets playing in real time.

Mobile Order Modal

Filtering through the interactive map was already helpful, but to assist the user in making quicker decisions, I’ve added a “mobile order foods near me” modal.

Deliver

Takeaways and Reflection

In the research phase of this project, I implemented precise measures to ensure a smooth design process for the user. I relied heavily on my research findings to guide my planning and execution. The project's success stems from my deep empathy for the user, which informed my design decisions throughout.

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