About Concert Buddies
Concert Buddies is a platonic matchmaking app built to help solo concertgoers find a buddy to attend their event with them. The matching process puts the control in the user's hand, allowing them to personalize their profile and set filters to increase chances of better connections. In addition, users can explore and save a variety of concerts, find links to ticket vendors, upgrade to a premium package for exclusive features, and chat in-app.
Skills: UI Design, Wireframing, Prototyping, Testing and Research
Approach
Using Lean UX, my team had 8 weeks to design a location-based matchmaking app that focuses on concert-centered connections.
Team Lead
Tools
MS Teams, Discord, FigJam, Figma, Canva
Concert Buddies allows users to match based on musical tastes and interests, fostering friendships and memorable experiences in the process.
Designed on an 8pt grid for iOS
Sprint 1 TakeawaysThe Lean UX Canvas encouraged us to embrace assumptions and remain adaptable to change, even if it meant abandoning ideas.
Deciphering metrics proved to be a significant challenge, requiring us to delve into understanding key indicators like what observable behaviors indicate user satisfaction.
1
2
Interview participants expressed reservations about the concept of "Followers," viewing it as potentially fostering judgment and inauthenticity.
We abandoned the original profile page in favor of editing personal matchcards – the cards displaying key information that users browse before swiping left or right on a potential buddy.
3
4
Two of our interviewees tested a low-fidelity wireframe of our chat feature to measure whether reporting and blocking a user grants a sense of safety, satisfaction, and/or control over their Concert Buddies experience.
Before
After (Empty)
After (Filled)
Wireframe and Style GuideFor the style guide, our primary inspiration was apps like Bumble and Tinder, so the average user would be familiar with key features while still adding our own twist.
Sprint 2 TakeawaysWe decided to change our metrics to focus on customer satisfaction and revenue, eliminating growth.
We felt the measured behaviors for “growth” applied better to “satisfaction”, and the addition of a Concert Buddies premium package allows our company to gain revenue.
1
All interviewees tested the first pass of our higher-fidelity prototype with an emphasis on their onboarding experience. This allowed us to witness the choices and behaviors a real person with these traits may display when interacting with our app.
2
We had an overall positive response with compliments on the cleanliness of Concert Buddies; however, participants thought the match choices should be relocated to the bottom of the page
3
I created the match card component, tweaking it multiple times to implement user feedback and prototype a swipe left/right function for each card. We considered the matchcards our core feature because they would be the start of all buddy connections.
4
Tested Hi-Fi Frames
Original Matchcard
Final Matchcard
Refinement
The primary focus of refinement week was consistency and clean up. I went back into each frame and made sure elements adhered to our style guide. I fixed margins, file hygiene, and tweaked various screens to ensure we had a cleaner, cohesive product.
Find a Buddy
Before
After
Notifications
Before
After
Settings
Before
After
Filters
Before
After
Lessons Learned🤯
Lean UX forces designers to put their egos aside to achieve the best outcome in a fast, efficient manner.
I had to become comfortable with presenting something I may dislike and open to my team or users shutting it down. The emphasis on continuity and collaboration can be daunting because you are expected to always be working on something, so you can’t become married to your own ideas—you must evolve with them.
Iterate. Iterate. Iterate.
Iteration is a continuous process that requires you to be open to change, and abandonment, of ideas. Sometimes the best counter to overthinking is to just do–and then build on what you’ve done.
The power of effective coordination and preparation.
A good interview guide can keep the conversation going and result in better quality feedback. In addition, by using task boards, progress trackers, and stand-up meetings, our team maintained steady progression, cohesion, and efficiency.
Our completed features taskboard