overview
The popularization of concerts have led to long merchandise lines
In the recent years, concerts have become very popular and people are attending multiple events a year. Many people wish to buy merchandise as a souvenir for a concert. From personal experience and observations, lines for merchandise are extremely long and have become stressful to obtain.
How might we improve the wait times and long lines for concert merchandise?
Solution
A self-service kiosk to streamline the merchandise purchasing process
Hover over the images to see our final designs in action!
Digital prototype
Kiosk demo
View prototype
online research
The current process for buying concert merch...
To get a sense of the current experience in buying concert merchandise, we explored 10 different articles and reddit posts and found 4 common problems fans face.
- ⏰ Arrival time Online users expressed concern about how early they need to arrive at the venue if they want to buy merch.
- 👚 Holding onto merch Not all concerts give out bags for merch and it's a hassle to hold it if they purchase before the concert.
- ⛺️ Lack of merch tents The lack of merch tents which caused the line to be exceptionally long and some fans were unable to purchase merch.
- ❓ Sizing Uncertainty Some online users were not sure about which sizes to get, while others were given the wrong size at the merchandise booths.
competitive audit
Exploring pros and cons of existing product vending kiosks
After researching problems with the existing method of buying concert merchandise. We looked into existing interactive kiosks to understand how they addressed the product vending experience.
Uniqlo Vending Machine
👍 Allows users to select color and size before adding to cart
👎 Uniqlo's vending machine dispenses a limited selection of their best-selling items ONLY
Uniqlo vending machine
Pop Mart Vending Machine
👍 Provides in-depth information for products
👍 Figurines displayed as samples
👎 Doesn't allow people to pick which box they want, unlike they can in store
Pop Mart vending machine
Benefit Vending Machine
👍 Includes list of all products with ratings
👍 Detailed product descriptions
👎 No out-of-stock indication
Benefit vending machine
field observations
It may take over an hour to line up and buy merchandise!
For our fieldwork, we observed 1 concert merchandise line (Sabrina Carpenter's Short n' Sweet Concert @ Chase Center San Francisco), and 3 interactive kiosks (Popmart & Benefit Vending Machine and Uniqlo self-checkout). Observing the concert merch line was helpful to understand the built enviroment and the target audience for our kiosk. While observing kiosks gave us a better sense of how people interacted with product-dispensing kiosks.
| Concert Line | Vending Kiosks |
|---|---|
| Average transaction time: 5-8 minutes; longer transactions due to indecisiveness and wanting to try on items | Average transacton time: 3 minutes; people browsing were typically in groups of 2-5 |
| 2 hours before the cooncert, the line was roughly 45 minutes to 1 hour | Having multiple iosks helped long lines move quickly and reduced wait times (Uniqlo) |
| Were able to decide which item to purchase because all sale items are displayed | People were able to quickly view whether items were in stock (Pop Mart, Benefit) |
Visualizing insights
Turning our online research and fieldwork into conceptualized personas and storyboards
From the insights we gathered through our field work and online research, we created two personas to represent our target audience and their needs:
Conceptualizing potential use cases and scenarios
Using these personas, we created storyboards to conceptualize actual usage scenarios and brainstorm how we could utilize a kiosk to address the pain points our personas face
We learned that users have some concerns with the idea of concert merch kiosks
We interviewed 5 concert-goers to understand their experience with purchasing concert merch and to test the concept of a merch kiosk though getting their opinions on our storyboards.
- Users want kiosks to mimic in-person interactions from feeling the clothing to seeing different sizes
- Users are worried that kiosks won't give them the flexibility to express their concerns when purchasing merchandise, such as returning or exchanging items
- Users are generally dissuaded from buying merchandise when there are long lines
Ideation
Working our way up from rough sketches
With our personas and storyboards in mind, we began sketching out ideas for the kiosk's digital and physical. We focused on creating a simple and intuitive interface that would allow users to quickly browse and purchase merchandise.
Digital display conceptual sketches
To begin, we sketched a paper prototype to the show digital interaction elements of our kiosk.
Paper prototype demo
Creating our paper prototype gave us a better sense of the user flow and how we wanted our design to look like. Then we created a lo-fi prototype for our primary screens.
Low-fidelity screens of the primary navigation pages
Physical kiosk conceptual sketches
Then, we sketched detailed ideas for our physical kiosks along with how users can interact with the kiosk. We made sure to incorporate physical features users valued such as product samples and displays.
Kiosk sketches
We plan for the kiosks to be next to the people-run merchandise booths to allow for users to pick between which interaction they want. Additionally, this will allow workers to easily be informed of any problems that arise.
Visualizing the kiosk location
branding
Capturing the emotional experience of concerts
Before moving on to high-fidelity screens, we created moodboards and style directions to explore different visual styles for our kiosk.
First, we wrote down a list of adjectives and found pictures that captured the emotional experience of concerts: entertaining, unforgettable, electric, dedicated, fun, and vibrant.
Moodboard w/ adjectives
A style guide based on the moodboard
Style guide
Stickersheet of custom components designed to match our style direction
Kiosk Prototyping
Deciding the physical features of the kiosk
Our testing revealed that users wanted the kiosk: mimic in-person interactions, allow for examination of clothing, provide bags to hold . To address this, we created a physical prototype of our kiosk to test out different features.
Our physical kiosk includes: clear signage, product samples, display case, and shopping bags
Sketch of all the features we want our kiosk to include
Moving on the next step of prototyping
After finalizing the physical features of our kiosk, we moved to Inkscape, an SVG editor, to create a detailed design of our kiosk. This design will be used to create the physical kiosk using a laser cutter.
Inkscape design of the physical kiosk
usability test
Flow comparison between digital and in-person merchandise purchasing
We tested our digital prototype with 3 users that were frequent concert goers to discuss the user flow and how it compares to purchasing concert merch normally.
Users found the general flow to be straightforward and a quick process. The digital interface allows for easy browsing, size selection, and checkout without waiting in long lines.
Users highlighted the tactile experience of touching merchandise, trying on items, and the social aspect of shopping with friends. However, they noted the long wait times and limited availability of popular items.
Final Design
A self-service kiosk to streamline the merchandise purchasing process
Using the Eras Tour by Taylor Swift as our hypothetical client, we created a digital and physical prototype of our kiosk. Our kiosk includes a touchscreen display for browsing and purchasing merchandise, as well as physical features such as product samples and a display case to mimic the in-person experience.
Hover over the images to see our final designs in action!
Digital prototype
Kiosk demo
The user flow on the digital prototype is simple and intuitive: Browse → Select → Add to cart → Checkout. This works in tandem with the physical kiosk, which dispenses the items purchased on the digital display.
Key features and user interactions of our digital display
View prototype
Next steps
Addressing any remaining issues and limitations
Although we created a functional digital and physical prototype, there are still some limitations and issues that need to be addressed before this product can be implemented in real life.
- Inventory: Due to the size of vending machines, inventory will be significantly smaller than that of a merch booth causing products to be sold out faster. A solution could be alerts for restocks to venue staff when a vending machine is out of stock..
- Cost: Allowing more access points through self-service vending machines will require venues to spend money to build these machines that will not be used daily.
Takeaways
What I learned from this project
This was one of the most unique projects I worked on, since it included building user interactions that extended beyond a digital display. Here are some key takeaways from this project:
- Evaluate product market fit: conducting storyboard interviews is a great of way to see how a product fits into a situation and whether it is genuinely useful.
- Ideate, ideate, and ideate: developing a paper prototype is an effective, low-fidelity method for rapidly iterating on user flows and validating design concepts early in the process.
- UX is not only digital: I gained practical insight into how design decisions, materials, and tools interact during real-world product creation.