Audiences
The audience for the event is foodies and people with a love for cheese. This could be assumed that the older generation is more of a target. We also want families to attend and groups of young people to widen their palette and enjoy some quality time together.
More specifically, the users of the website and companion app would be this audience attending, any vendors who are interested in selling their cheese at the event, public who are interested in watching the livestream of the event, and any media present who want to share the festival. The user’s needs are to successfully discover information on this event and purchase tickets to attend. The stakeholders for this event include those farm shops aiming to make profit of their sales. The event organisers would also be a stakeholder as success for them would be a popular event and ensuring these independent shops are selling their products to said audience.
Similar Festivals Research
Researching similar UK based cheese festivals, it was clear that improvement was needed involving a companion app as this was not seen at all when comparing the website versions. The two sites used to conduct this secondary research is Yorkshire Dales Cheese Festival (yorkshiredales.org.uk, 2022). and Love Cheese Live Festival. (lovecheeselive.co.uk, n.d.). Both websites do not have apps and the mobile version of the websites is very complex to navigate. There are numerous accessibility issues with these processes that need to be resolved. For example, users with motor impairments won’t be able to click the small buttons and users with cognitive impairments will find the big chunks of information hard to process and understand.
Following up this research, numerous Reddit users have had issues with user experience on popular sites which they have shared so other people can avoid these mistakes. One user made a suggestion that would be extremely impactful for a companion app: “Would be nice to have a site where I can select all the bands I want to see the most and what times/stages they’re playing.” (setteraggic, 2022). The clear main problem space for user experience as a festivalgoer is having a clean, easy site where every drop of information can be found in an accessible format. This needs to have a simple yet structured interface that a user can come back to continuously.
User Journey Map
Below is a simple user journey map from one of our personas (which you will find below) Caroline’s experience of a previous cheese festival that she visited. This is an effective way to highlight pain points and focus areas to see her high and low points.
Personas
Below are 3 personas created that would be key target audiences for our event and to use the website/companion app:
Success and Assumptions
Success in our designs will be shown by users quickly and easily navigating through to purchase tickets and this being done through an aesthetically pleasing manner. Our design will be accessible to everyone and provide sufficient profits for our stakeholders to see. Some main assumptions that go by our festival include every user knows how to access their phones to download the companion app. Further, they are all accessibly able to travel to the event independently. These are bold assumptions that will ensure the user has the best possible experience from using our designs and enjoying the festival.
Storyboard
The following is a storyboard of a visual walkthrough of how the festival site and app may work:
References
Cisneros, E., 2017. Smiling woman in shallow focus photography photo. [Online]
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health.qld.gov.au, 2021. It’s a win-win for me. [Online]
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[Accessed 09 03 2022].
lovecheeselive.co.uk, n.d. Love Cheese Live Food & Drink Festival. [Online]
Available at: https://www.lovecheeselive.co.uk/
[Accessed 09 03 2022].
setteraggic, 2022. Is there an app or website for festival times and stages?. [Online]
Available at: https://www.reddit.com/r/downloadfestival/comments/sd67fu/is_there_an_app_or_website_for_festival_times_and/
[Accessed 09 03 2022].
yorkshiredales.org.uk, 2022. Yorkshire Dales Cheese Festival, celebrating local produce. [Online]
Available at: https://www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/things-to-do/whats-on/shows/cheese-festival/
[Accessed 09 03 2022].
zinkevych, n.d. Happy handsome middle-aged man sitting on bed. [Online]
Available at: https://www.123rf.com/photo_92702356_happy-family-handsome-middleaged-man-sitting-on-the-bed-and-posing-for-the-camera-while-his-little-s.html
[Accessed 09 03 2022].