Ticketmaster was looking to build a mobile application to provide a modern ticketing solution and to bring more value to our services. One of the main challenges was designing and building it on an aggressive timeline.
Mobile Box Office
Ticketmaster
An idea
There was already an idea being floated around regarding a mobile app for clients. Our stakeholders had communicated a way for box offices to sell tickets in line as opposed to the window. The theory was that it would relieve congestion and wait times for fans. This definitely sounded like a good idea.
Upsell from lawn > seats
Upsell in venue
No in line purchases
What do venues really want?
We didn't have much time for research but a fellow designer and I sat down with a few account managers to hear what they thought their clients were saying. We realized they had bigger things in mind:
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More online purchasing means fewer people in lines
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Venues want to upsell better seats once fans are inside
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Sports teams want to upsell season tickets to fans
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Venues want to sell products like food and merchandise
Mobile challenges
There were physical and logistical challenges to consider that were entirely separate from the mobile device. A few of them were:
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How would lighting affect scanners?
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What type of network connectivity would work the best?
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What kinds of peripherals and accessories would be attached to the device?
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Where would sellers be located?
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Would weather be a factor?
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What kind of interactions could we expect from customers?
Whiteboarding
User Flows
Wireframing
Designing
We didn't have the luxury of adding functionality that would've met some of their core wants and needs. Instead, we needed to stay focused on building out a minimum viable product. We borrowed from our existing consumer purchasing model and used standard checkout conventions. Box office attendees would be the ones driving the purchases but it was a system that could be easily ported in the future to an automated type of interface, like a kiosk.
Rapid Prototyping
Designing in parallel with sketches and wires, I built prototypes to test feasibility with our developers and to review with our stakeholders. I used Axure to prototype and loaded them onto our test iPads.
Learnings and results
We were able to gather information through interviews and we worked closely with product managers to stay on target. The aggressive timeline was a challenge but in the end we were able to provide basic event search, upsell, and checkout features. Although we knew it wasn't the optimal experience, we'd be able to rely on box office staff to adjust accordingly to situations.
Ticketmaster
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