1. Intro 2. Research 3. Architecture 4. Wireframing 5. Prototype 6. Style Guide 7. Results

Welcome to Afters

People want to find the perfect night out. But that perfect night out can be a mess to find.

Built as the final project for my UX Design course at BrainStation Toronto, Afters is an app that allows users to explore, find, and purchase tickets to raves, concerts, and nightlife events all on a singular platform. It gives users the power to plan their perfect night out, even if they are already out (more on that later). But most importantly, it's been built from the ground up to be as intuitive for beginners as it is powerful for seasoned professionals.

Become a nightlife pro.

Powerful search and discovery tools make it easier than ever to explore your scene and purchase tickets to your favourite events.

Get tickets, get going.

Find shows and buy tickets all on the same app. No more sifting through your emails or using janky 3rd-party websites.

Nightlife Newbie?
No problem.

Intuitive features that allow you to easily explore every facet of your city's nightlife scene. From detailed venue info, to artist & promoter profiles, and industry-first AI-powered Vibe Tagging that gives you the power to leave no stone left unturned in your nightlife journeys.

Keep your night going.
And going. And going.

Because nights have a way of evolving - find events that are happening close to you right now using the game-changing Live Now feature.

Whether your stumbling out of dinner with your pals, or getting tired of the vibe at a show you're already at - that next afters is just a few taps away.

Unlock a next-level
nightlife experience

Next Level Event Tagging

Robust AI-Powered automatic tagging will find the most relevant descriptors for Events and Artists so you know exactly the type of vibes to expect. Best of all? These tags are all searchable.

Because you're not going to an EDM show, you're going to a Hyperpop Witchhouse Techno show.

Fave It and Save It

Not ready to commit to buying tix? You can favourite an Event to easily access it later.

Favouriting builds up the hype of an Event, let's your friends know you're interested in going, and let's us serve you more relevant content.

See Hype? Get Hype.

Quickly see how many people are interested in an Event by the easily scannable Hypemeter.

How "Hype" an Event is is determined by a combination of Favourites and ticket purchases.

Follow Your Scene,
Your Way.

Never miss a beat. Follow Artists, Venues, Promoters, and even Genres to be notified of Events in your city.

With Spotify and Apple Music integration, you can make sure that you automatically stay in-the-know for all your favourites when new Events are announced.

Snag Tickets in Seconds

Buy tickets to Events in as quick as two taps after opening the app.

Safely, securely, and seamlessly buy your tickets through one intuitive interface.

No need to open a new website and no need to give your credit card details to yet another 3rd party vendor.

Everything's Better
with Friends

Follow Friends to let each other know what Events you are going to.

Gone are the days of asking "So who's all coming?".

Research

For Afters to live up to it's fullest potential, it was important to understand both the cultural landscape and the needs of potential users. By identifying a potential market for disruption and conducting user interviews, I was able to identify 4 personas that would serve as the target audience for Afters and develop key takeaways to help inform my design decisions.

Problem Space

The experience of finding nightlife is fragmented, clunky, and time-consuming. Especially for people new to the scene, it can be a confusing mess - where do you even begin your search?

Do you start on social media to find out when artists are coming to town? Maybe you peruse platforms like Ticketmaster, but are unsure if they are showing events that are even relevant to you. Or do you rely on aggregated lists like on BlogTO to help you find what popular?

There are many starting points, but none of them give you the quick-read information to make an informed decision on where to spend your night out.

Competitive Analysis

To better understand how Afters would fit into the existing marketplace, I took a look at comparable ticket purchasing platforms, each with their own unique cultural context as it pertains to nightlife.

Ticketmaster

Ticketmaster is arguably the most mainstream and widely available ticketing platform in the world. However, due to its immense scale, it is typically only reserved for use with venues it owns (i.e. large stadiums and venues that host the most popular of artists).

The main use case of the platform is to purchase tickets to popular events at large venues. Users don't use their platform to discover or explore events, but rather to simply purchase tickets for events they've discovered elsewhere (via advertising or social media).

With ticket purchasing being the primary use of the app, it lacks a robust discovery engine for finding new events or artists. There are no artist profile pages, venue pages, or friend functionality. As a result there is no way to search for events beyond typing out the name of the event itself - leaving out the ability to search by genre, vibe, or proximity.

Dice

Dice is a concert discovery platform specializing in indie concerts and underground nightlife. Its centered around providing users with personalized feeds and curated “Discover” carousels, making it easy to stumble upon emerging artists and offbeat events.

Despite its strengths in surfacing niche shows, Dice offers limited ways to explore beyond their curated list of events. There is no genre-tagging to aid in search and discovery and there is limiting to no social proof that aides in sussing out an event's popularity at first glance.

While it's sleek interface excels are providing a serviceable user experience for purchasing concert tickets, it falls short of being a one-stop-shop for nightlife escapades.

RA Guide

RA Guide is the go-to hub for underground electronic music and club culture, offering in-depth editorial content alongside comprehensive event listings. The platform was born out of the underground electronic music publication Resident Advisor and carries with it the legitimate cultural cache that comes from decades of covering music scenes across the globe.

Users can filter by city and date, but otherwise are only presented with a list of events in chronological order. While efficient at showcasing the pertinent information for events, RA Guide’s UI density and specialist focus can intimidate casual users. The interface—while data-rich—can be perceived as cluttered, and the platform lacks a comprehensive search functionality with the only searchable terms being keywords in the event title.

Community features are minimal: there’s no friend-based activity feed or collaborative wishlisting, so planning group outings relies on external coordination. While RA excels at surfacing underground events, its experience feels tailored to insiders - leaving casual users and nightlife newcomers in the dark. It's a platform that is the industry standard for underground raves, but is based purely upon the immense cultural cache of the Resident Advisor brand itself.

User Interviews

A total of 5 people were interviewed to gather thoughts, opinions, and experiences with planning nightlife outings. Interviewees were people who already have somewhat of an interest in nightlife since the ideal user of the app would be a person familiar with the basics.

Interview Structure

Five people were interviewed: 2 "Frequent" nightlife enjoyers, 2 "Casual" nightlife-goers, and 1 person who seldom attends nightlife-related events.

Section 1:
Intro

Introducing the user to a high-level idea of the app and warming up with some semi-relevant small talk.

How’s it going?

What did you get up to this past weekend?

Any big plans for next weekend?

How often would you say that you spend a night out in the city?

Is it typically a late night?

What was the last show you went to? Tell me about it.

Section 2:
Nightlife Experience

Steering the conversation towards their personal experiences and habits with nightlife events.

‍Tell me about a time you had a memorable night out in the city. What specifically made it so great?

What could’ve made it better?

What about a time that was disappointing?

What made it that way?

When you go out, do you typically have your entire night planned? Or are you open to it evolving as the night progresses?

Section 3:
Nightlife Planning

Drilling down to the most pertinent questioning that can unlock specific user behaviours.

When looking for nightlife, where do you usually start from?

Why do you go there first?

Do you find the experience of purchasing tickets clunky? If so, why?

Have you ever prioritized an event based on convenience (e.g. proximity) over specificity (e.g. more popular, but further away)?

Do you find it hard to rally your friends around an event?

Do you have trouble describing the type of music or vibe of an event to them?

If there’s one thing you wish you could fix about planning a night out, what would it be?

Interview Highlights

A selection of direct quotes pulled from interviews.

“Newer and more underground artists are harder to describe to friends, especially in electronic music.”

“I would say I usually have 40% of my night planned before I go out. Where we’re going and how we’re getting there - after that we’re kinda at the whim of the energy of the group.”

“When going to a rave, sometimes the show’s location remains secret until the day of the event. This makes planning your night more difficult”

“I buy tickets first, ask questions later.”

“I really wish there was one place on the internet that listed every single show that is going on in the city”

“Having a map would be super beneficial for impromptu plans.”

Affinity Mapping: Motivations

Going to nightlife events is a great way to spend time with friends

Concerts and raves are a great way to meet new people

Nightlife events are a great opporuntiy to connect with your local community and music scene

Partaking in nightlife culture is a way to take advantage of living in a big city

Going to these events is an outlet for me to express my identity

Nightlife is a great way to stay "in-the-know" and makes me feel cool

Affinity Mapping: Behaviours

I do casual "research" on a venue or artist before buying tickets to an event

I'll check if any friends are interested in attending events prior to committing

With so many events to choose from, I try to limit myself to going to 1 or 2 per month

Sometimes I prioritize events that are closer to me vs. further away

Sometimes I'll prioritize events for an artist or type of music I really want to see - no matter how inconvienient it is to get to

I'll make a decision to attend an event if I feelk like it will likely sell out soon

Affinity Mapping: Pain Points

It's hard to find information about events without already following artists, venues, or promoters across different platforms

It's tricky to tell how popular an event will be without knowing the intricacies of the music scene

When making impromptu plans, there is no quick way to discover what is happening at the exact moment

Sometimes I don't want to explicitly make hard plans with friends to attend an event at the risk of being denied/ignored

Many events have artists or genres that I am unfamiliar with and involves flipping between mutliple platforms to research what they sound like

There's no easy way to sort events other than chronological order

Especially with electronic music, it's hard to describe the exact genre or vibe a show will have due to the nuance of subgenres

For raves with secret locations, it can be hard to figure out where they are located

Sometimes I regret going to a specific events becayuse it's not what I expected

Personas

From the interviews, 4 personas were created in order to better understand the spectrum of people within our target audience - from the inexperienced, to the veteran club-goer.

Persona 1: The Newcomer

Jacqui Rappaport

Age

Education

Studying in University

Status

In a Relationship

Job

Student

Location

Toronto, ON

Tech Literacy

Very High

I wish there was a single source that shows me every event happening in the city.

Personality

Introvert

Responsible Partier

Queer

Binge Watcher

Gamer

Social Media Queen

Bio

Jacqui is a sophomore student at Toronto Metropolitan University where she’s working towards a BA in Sociology. Her mindset? Weekdays are for studying, weekends are for exploring the city. After growing up in Northern Ontario, she is a relative newcomer city living - eager to make new friends and discover events that are inclusive and support her queer identity.

Goals

Wants to passively know what her friends are up to on a given weekend
Attend queer-friendly nightlife events
New to the city, Jacqui needs help understanding the ‘lay of the land’

Frustrations

Jacqui is introverted and finds it socially draining to constantly badger your friends to figure out what events to go to
Hard to figure out what events are part of the scene she wants to associate with
Sometimes raves have a “secret location” and make it hard to plan your night around it

Solutions

The ability to see what events your friends are interested in
Search and map functionality that allows for easier event discovery
App notifcations for event updates as they are announced

Brands & Apps

Persona 2: The Spontaneous Socialite

Ashlee Singh

Age

Education

University Degree

Status

Single

Job

Marketing Manager

Location

Toronto, ON

Tech Literacy

High

Partying isn’t my life, but I wish I had the tools to keep up with the scene.