Type: Individual Personal Project

Duration: 3 Weeks.

Skills: UX research, Wireframing, Visual design, Prototyping.

Tools: Illustrator, Photoshop, Principle.

WHY GIGTHERAPY?

GAD ( Generalized Anxiety Disorder ) affects 6.8 million adults or 3.1% of the U.S. population, yet only 43.2% are receiving treatment and a concert can be a trigger.

There are ways to reduce stress which is involved with social gatherings such as a concert.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Gigtherapy allows users to add friends as part of their "Crew". These members can be spotted when the user is in the arena.

Geofencing detects and enables live tracking of movement of the user when they are in the concert venue and they can also find food, drinks, restrooms, etc. This reduces anxiety associated with a crowd and the fear of losing friends or getting lost.

“My best friend and I both have anxiety with crowds, so we always go together. If one of us needs to leave, we both leave. We help each other enjoy it and get excited by being supportive together. We have found it’s easier to do something uncomfortable if you’re doing it for someone you love, so we do it for each other, and we have a blast most of the time, and if we don’t, we are still in it together.” — Stephanie S.

From this quote by Stephanie, I understood that sticking together with friends is important to be less anxious.

 “If you are able to, go to the venue before the event (like a few days before) and try and sit down in the seat you’ll have. Call the venue where the concert will be and ask if you can visit when the venue is empty. In living with agoraphobia, I’ve learned that venue managers can be extremely understanding and want to give their guests the most comfortable experience possible." — Laura Steenerson.

The second quote from Laura helped me understand that the venue itself can be intimidating. Getting my users acquainted with an empty venue location can be helpful in reducing their anxiety. 

 “Get there early. Note the locations of the exits, bathrooms and an area you can get to easily if a panic attack occurs. Find your seats (if you have them). Take your seat and scope out the people around you. Take a breath. Make sure you know you can leave if your anxiety gets too bad, and you shouldn’t feel bad about it. Learn as much as you can about the venue and note anything that makes you feel safer/better." — Allison.

From this quote by Allison, I understood that it is important for people with anxiety to locate the restrooms, the exits, and other things easily.

How to help people with agoraphobia and social anxiety have an anxiety-free concert experience? 

Learnings:

• Developing familiarity with the artist's music, aids in anxiety relief 
  
• They are mostly there with some friends and staying in the group makes things easier
  
• Spatial knowledge can be leveraged to reduce anxiety
  

Assumptions:

• The internet connection inside the concert arena is seamless 

Considerations:

• It is loud inside the arena which makes reaching out to friends through call not possible in case of a panic attack
  
• Transit can be a cause for concern especially if intoxicated
  
• Losing your friends can be a major concern in large crowds forcing them to interact with strangers

GENERAL APPROACH

After my research about social anxiety, I came up with a general approach toward reducing it and incorporating some goals into my interaction model. Social anxiety can be reduced in a situation like a concert by adopting some goals such as getting to know what the arena looks like, being able to find friends in a crowd, finding food and drinks with ease without having to seek help constantly. My interaction model is built around these goals.

KNOW THE ARTIST

Listen to a sample of the artist’s music before attending their concert for the first time.

KNOW THE ARENA

Look at pictures of the arena to get a sense of where the concert is being held.

FIND FRIENDS

Lose the anxiety of losing your friends in a crowd.

FIND OTHER STUFF

Find your way to food and drinks in the arena.

MEET SASHA

Sasha is a 21-year-old college student living in Ibiza, Spain with social anxiety. She loves music but is intimidated by the idea of a concert because of the confusion and a large number of people associated with it.

Sasha is afraid of crowds due to a fear of losing her friends or getting lost.

Sasha uses Bandsintown and Ticketmaster to book her concert tickets.

CONS

1. Does not give you tracking options inside the concerts

2. The overall experience ends at after buying the concert ticket

3. The location needs to be changed manually

4. The Artists page is not intuitive

CONS

1. Apps don’t give you tracking options inside the concert arena

2. Does not show what the concert arena looks like

3. Does not have a social component to its overall concert experience

4. The seat selection screen is intimidating and the diagram of the concert arena is too small

SASHA'S USE CASE

Here is a typical use case for Sasha when she is going to buy a ticket for a concert and attending it. 

IDEATION

I ideated on different ways of displaying the concerts and also different ways the user will navigate through the process of buying the ticket to get a stronger hold on the interaction model to follow. Here are some highlights.

SIDESWIPE CONCERTS

One of my approaches to select the concerts was to have cards that swiped sideways. The flaw in this model was that the user would see only one concert at a time.

SWIPE THROUGH STEPS

The initial idea was to have the users swipe through the steps of the process of buying the ticket. The flaw of this interaction model was that the call to action button that launches the next step had to change the text within which would be confusing since it displays the name of the next step. 

SCROLL CONCERTS

I chose scroll as the best option for my design. This would display multiple concerts at a time and was hence the right choice.

SCROLL THROUGH STEPS

I saw the scroll to be a better interaction model as the call to action in each screen could become the header for the next screen. Thereby solving the problem with the side swipe.

LOTS OF GIGS

Sasha browses through the collection of concerts and selects one.

CONCERT SCREENS

Sasha listens to a sample of the music to get a better idea. She likes the music and is confident about the concert now.

SELECTING SEATS

She is ready to select seats for the concert. But she feels she might feel less anxious if she could see how the arena looks like so she knows what she should expect. So she clicks on the eye icon to see a 360 view of the arena.

SNEAK PEEK

Sasha clicks on the eye on the screen to see a 360 view of the arena. She feels she can prepare herself better to not be anxious now that she knows what she is getting into.

GOING FOR IT

Sasha decides to pay for her ticket. She selects a credit card that she has already saved.

BUYING THE TICKET

Sasha reads the receipt of the concert ticket and decides to click "Buy Ticket".

TICKETS

After she buys the ticket, it gets added to the tickets option on the menu. The ticket she just bought is active while all her previous tickets are inactive.

QR CODE TICKET

Her E-Ticket has a QR code that can be used to check into the concert.

LIVE TRACKING

Sasha sees that when she is in the concert area, she can launch live tracking. The option to track and view her location and map of the layout of the arena. 

NEVER GET LOST

When she is in the concert arena, Sasha sees that she can map out her location from the application. She can also see where her friends are and where the food and drinks stands are.

FIND EVERYTHING

Sasha sees that she can find food and drinks on the map and clicking on the shows the way to it. She is less anxious about getting lost in the crowd.

MAKING NEW FRIENDS

Sasha meets new people while at the concert and decides to add them to her crew list. She can now see them on her map when she attends concerts the next time.

SUMMARY

With the help of GIGTHERAPY, Sasha was able to have an anxiety-free concert experience. She was able to decide better on what concerts she wants to attend using the sample music screen, she was able to reduce her anxiety before going to the concert by getting a feel of the concert arena with a 360 degree view, she was also able to find her friends, food, and drinks in the concert location and even made new friends.



© 2022 Akshay Kumar Arun