ECHO
Research
UI/UX
Prototyping
Visual identity
For this project, my goal was to create a social music events platform where users can discover concerts, festivals, and gigs by seeing what their friends are attending. As someone who likes to attend music events, I found most services acted as an impersonal database. I wanted to create a space for people to be able to connect with others and get personalized recommendations, providing a service that acts as a guide. I started with problem discovery, followed my interviews and sketching. I then moved into lo-fi protypes and testing before finally creating a brand identity and high-fidelity prototypes.
Problem Discovery
Through initial research and user interviews, I identified key pain points with existing music event platforms:
Lack of Personalization: Most platforms present events as long, unfiltered lists
Missing Social Context: Existing platforms treat event discovery as a solitary experience
Fragmented Experience: Users often need to check multiple platforms
User Interviews
I conducted interviews with users aged 25-27, who frequently attend music events.
Key findings included:
Users value events not just for the experience itself, but for the social aspect of going with friends
Event apps should serve as a guide, not a database, with personal recommendations
People want to feel connected digitally without it being overbearing
Ideation, Sketching & Testing
Based on research insights, I began sketching initial concepts. I then tested my lo-fi prototype with users with feedback focusing on filtering systems, easy access to tickets and recommendations in the survey. I iterated on the designs based on this feedback.
Brand Identity & Visual Design
After exploring 3 routes, I developed a brand identity for Echo, with a minimal yet bold color palette, expressive photography, taken from Midjourney, and editorial look and feel to stand out from competitors in the space. I created a marketing site to explore how the brand would express itself on a more broader scale while also developed components that I used in my hi-fidelity prototype.
High-Fidelity Prototypes
The final high-fidelity prototypes brought together all learnings into a polished, interactive experience showcasing:
Personalized Discovery Feed: events ranked by relevance to user tastes and friend activity
Feed: see what concerts friends are interested in or attending
Smart Recommendations: Bespoke suggestions based on a survey, listening history, past attendance, and social connections
Following: track favorite artists, venues and friends
The Solution
My main challenge throughout this project was to meaningfully differentiate from established competitors in the crowded events space. I addressed this through two key innovations:
Bespoke Recommendations: Rather than generic guides, I created a user survey to help with recommendations. The home page is categorized to feature events based on preferences, past attendance and friends activity.
Social-First Design: I elevated the social aspect from a secondary feature to a core organizing principle, prominently showcasing which events friends are attending
Learnings
My main challenge takeaway was learning switch between perspectives, sometimes stepping back to view the product holistically, and other times zooming in to refine the smallest details. I would like to continue to explore building out more bespoke survey for recommendations and further interactions.
Appendix
I developed brand guidelines including typography, color palettes, iconography, and component libraries.
