Open Indie Music Festival is a 3-day festival at the University of Washington that champions accessibility through both representation and price point. The festival celebrates people of color, queer individuals, and women through exceptional live performances by established and emerging intersectional musicians. With discounted student passes, the festival makes live music experiences attainable for its campus community while creating an inclusive space for all attendees.

Festival attendees can easily compare pass options in the app and choose the one that best fits their needs.

For students at the University of Washington, the streamlined check out process allows them to easily sign up using their UW NetID to get a 70% off discount and no fees.

Attendees who are unfamiliar with the lineup or certain artists can easily view the lineup and learn about new established or on-the-rise artists.

Attendees will experience a festival with cohesive branding in materials and memorabilia like tickets, posters, wayfinding signage, brochures, etc.

Given the open-ended task of creating a music festival at the University of Washington, I had the creative freedom to define the festival's scope and direction.

I began my design process by first addressing the following questions:

• What is the current landscape of the music festival industry?
  There's a growing demand for festivals that cater to diverse and marginalized groups, including POC, queer folks, and women. Festivals that celebrate these communities often have a strong sense of purpose and identity.
  Indie-pop is a genre with a dedicated fan base, and its appeal is growing, especially among younger audiences who appreciate the genre's authenticity and diversity.
  
• What is the experience of attending a festival, and what interactions are crucial to it?‍
  Attendees are looking for a festival experience that feels inclusive, celebratory, and engaging (high-quality live performances, safe and welcoming spaces, and opportunities to connect with like-minded individuals).
  Ensuring that the festival is accessible, in terms of physical accessibility and financial affordability, is vital.

I analyzed 3 different music festivals to gain a further understanding of popular music festivals on the market and identify any pain points in the process. Through this research, I found that ticket prices were expensive, limited festivals offer student discounts, and festivals focused on the indie music scene lack people of color musicians.

After conducting the competitor analyses, I found many interesting insights for our three users groups:
students, indie music listeners, and people of color.
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After synthesizing my research about our three user groups, I created personas to further understand their behaviors and needs. One of the most important takeaways from creating these personas was realizing that all appreciate inclusivity in their lineups

"How might we create a music festival that celebrates and amplifies the voices of people of color, queer individuals, and women, while providing an inclusive, authentic, and affordable experience for students?"

‘Open’ is defined as not closed or blocked up, which relates to creating an experience where attendees feel safe to just bring their true, open, authentic selves.

I wanted to utlize colors that were bold, yet still a bit muted down. Since this festival is taking place in Seattle, known for its nature and forests, I used green as my main color.

To establish feelings of joy, self-pride, and a breezy summer, I utilized a monochromatic and analogous color palette, featuring greens, blues, and purples. The breezy summer and joy feelings are seen in the blues representing tranquility and the sky, the greens align with nature, and the lavender symbolizing confidence, and individuality.

For the primary font, I selected Rebori because of its rounded serifs, creating a more welcoming environment. For the secondary font, I selected Source Sans 3 because it has the 2-story ‘a’ and ‘g’ that Rebori posses, while also sharing the same x-height. Source Sans 3 is a sans serif font, giving it some uniqueness compared to Rebori, allowing it to preserve individuality.

With my problem statement in mind, I created 3 design requirements to address the needs of our three user groups and the actions to solidify the requirements.

• Streamline the checkout process to help UW students apply their student discount
  UW students can sign in with their UW NetID to apply their student discount. Checkout process is simplified to eliminate difficulty in proving student status.
  
• Allow prospective attendees to easily view the artist lineup and learn more about the artists
  ‍Page that lists all the musicians performing and information about the artist (bio, top songs, stage where they are performing).
• Allow prospective attendees to easily compare the prices of the passes
  Page that lists all the available passes with prices clearly presented.

For this user flow, I chose Aidan since his decision to buy tickets is dependent on the lineup. I wanted to visualize what steps he would take to determine his buying decision.
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Aidan’s task is to determine if the lineup is worth buying a ticket.
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From the user flow there are many paths Aidan can take based on their opinion of the lineup. From liking artists on all days to artists on one day, they have the same flow up until the type of pass they want to purchase. If Aidan doesn’t like any of the artists, he will simply not buy any tickets.

After creating the user flow for Aidan, I began creating low-fidelity wireframes. Due to the time constraint given for these wireframes, I was unable to create one for the checkout process.

I gathered feedback on my wireframes by conducting 6 usability test that targeted the 2 of the 3 primary flows I had created. I found these takeaways:

• Make smaller text bigger
  One user had a hard time reading some of the fine print displayed in the mobile app.
  
• Fonts greater than 12pt
  ‍One user wanted to emphasize that font sizes shouldn't go lower than 12pt for readability sake.
• Ensuring good type hierarchy
  One user wanted to ensure I was utilizing good type hierarchy, so the most important texts are bigger.

After making adjustments to my wireframes from the usability testing, I created a high fidelity prototype. From the feedback on my lofi prototype, I focused on good type hierarchy and ensuring all text is readable.

To keep the overall interface cohesive, I created a design library of components to reuse. I ensured I used the same color palette and typefaces mentioned earlier as well.

Feel free to play around with the Open Indie Music Festival app prototype below! Use the left sidebar on Figma to select from the designed user flows.

To ensure a sense of collectibility, I ensured each day's ticket had a unique and exclusive design, which catered to who was headlining that day. Those who attended all three days would receive an Indie Music Festival exclusive vinyl.

For this infographic, I displayed information that would help persuade potential customers to attend my music festival. To accomplish that, I included visuals and statistics to hook them in. To gather my data, I created creating a form that allowed random users to answer questions about my festival. In my infographic, I included:

• Pie charts to convey women were very likely to attend my music festival, validating my music festival as an event that appeals to their interests and demographics.
• Bar graphs of the familiarity of artists in my lineup, ensuring I'm highlighting lesser known artists
• Text emphasizing that 80% of students would buy the 3-Day VIP pass after learning about the student discount.