Musician Booking App for St. Louis Forest Park




UX Designer: Jared S.
CLICK here for a link to the detailed case study slide deck.

The product: Designed for the Forest Park in St. Louis wedding venue. To bring together into one place, musicians, wedding planners, and event organizers with regard to the wedding venue booking.

Project duration: Total duration July 2022 to Sept. 2022

The problem: How can we design an app for the Forest Park wedding venue to book musicians. How can we bring this diverse range of users together for easy interaction.

The goal: To have one app for anyone having a wedding at Forest Park to book musicians for the venue easily.





My role: I am the lead UX designer. Project leader.


ResponsibilitiesPreparing the sprint and gathering participants. User research, facilitating with timing and   brainstorming exercises. wireframing, prototyping, and documenting test results with the end product.


User Research Summary: First reviewing user bios, then preparing interviews with users. 

User interviews, will there be a polarity between user dichotomy?, We found there was not a dichotomy but rather a community, eager to get in touch with one another and benefit each other.

The biggest assumption I made going in to this project was that the venue only needed to match musicians with the wedding planners. Where in actuality, there was a need for other services and in part how other services are marketed for events such as these weddings ( i.e. DJ often can be packaged with videography)




User research: Pain Points

  1.  Time Consuming It takes too long to research/Resources are scattered on web.
  2. Risky Business There isn’t a single place one can go to find trustworthy bookings.
  3. Few Options Write one to two sentences reflecting on the pain point listed above and how it will guide designs moving forward.
  4. Venue is too often the “middle man” “It’s a time consuming risky business to get between a bride and her band.” Weddings are for the wedding planner to plan, we want to make that easier for them at our venue
Freddie Collins Jr. is a persona more closely aligned to my personal wheelhouse. A musician, looking for work.



Brenda Flipper is a quick witted persona with real needs in the booking musician's category.




UX Design Storyboard (big picture)

Scenario: An app for finding and booking musicians for STL Forest Park wedding venue






UX Design Storyboard (close up story)

Scenario:  An app for finding and booking musicians for STL Forest Park wedding venue






Paper wireframes:



Our users are wedding planners and musical entertainment vendors. wedding planners will need more than just musicians, and they want lots of information about who they book for their wedding venue.












Both users need secure payment options, assistive tech for audio and visual impairments. Color blinding or consideration even for epileptic prone individuals, cultural preference ( mariachi, polka...) A wedding booking app where users are matched to their needs and wants to complete business transactions  




























Digital wireframes:

In this first digital wireframe sample, I had three goals. Copy paper wireframes, modify mistakes, and keep a scope of understanding that this app should be as self sufficient as possible.




User Flow:
Keeping with the user experience, we specify the flow for each of our user types.



Low-Fidelity Prototype: Here is a link to the prototype online.

UX Research Study Plan:
I used a study plan template to organize the structure of our research. I wanted to make sure to be proactive with the entire research plan. This way I could cover any unforeseen instances. And gather 100 percent of the information presented by the results.

Click here to see the entire study plan.

Round 1 findings: Lo-Fi prototype
  1. Screens for events were missing

  2. There was no home button

  3. Calendar missing

Round 2 findings: Hi-Fi prototype

  1. Launch Screen was missing
  2. Back Button missing

  3. Request for more content/config for musician profile







Mockups:






High Fidelity Prototype: Click here for a link to the hi-fi prototype.



Accessibility considerations:
  1. Color contrast and accessibility were previously poorly contrived. Building opportunity for color contrast was implemented.

  2. We wanted to include a second language to further the base of users. So, we added an English or Spanish choice for the launch screen.

  3. Feeling the burn ( as it were) with regard to call to action and user flow. Some of the buttons were too small, and did not have enough contrast. We fixed that.


Takeaways

Impact: 

The impact this will have is very much specific to the local community. Here in ST. Louis Forest Park is home to many Spanish speaking people. Weddings planned at the venue here are gorgeous and opulently decorated. This app project will help draw in some of that opulence, and generate a higher influx of wedding band options, as well as feedback from the community.

What I learned:

This project was larger than anticipated. At First, we assumed there would be a small collection of pages. Then when one considers that not only planners but also musicians will be using the app, the growth of the number of pages had to accommodate.


Next steps

  1. We will add a status bar to the top of the booking process’ pages and for quick view access on the notifications page.
  2. We will further bring forward the call to action sequence for a better enhance user flow. By standardizing the profile boxes on musician page.
  3. Adding a little status bar to the alerts/notifications banners. To indicate at which process the booking is in at a glance.

THANK YOU and Let’s Connect!

Phone: 6186123337
EMAIL: jpsonger2@gmail.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jared-songer-b0528b244
Other Works: https://songerisms.blogspot.com/
https://doggynkitty.blogspot.com/