Ticketmaster
A Story About Fixing Two Problems Millions Experience (But No One Addresses)
USE ARROWS
CLICK TO OPEN
PROBLEM
00 - OVERVIEW
This project started with a simple frustration I felt while buying tickets — and turned into a 3-week redesign focused on fixing two universal issues at the exact moment users commit money:
You can’t see your seat.
Pricing feels unclear.
By reducing cognitive load at this high-stakes decision point, the redesign led to a +54.5% jump in seat-confidence, strong 6.33/7 purchase intent, and a projected $140M annual GTV impact when translated into a conservative 0.5% conversion lift.
Tools: Figma, Google Forms, Discord/Zoom
Timeline: 3 weeks (2025)
My Role: Research, UX Design, UI Design, Prototyping, Testing
01 - THE MOMENT IT BROKE
Community images vs. billion-dollar platform
The breakdown happened at the exact point of commitment: choosing a seat without knowing what the view actually looks like. I was excited, scrolling through the Ticketmaster map, trying to pick seats. Then I realized something embarrassingly simple: I had no idea what the view from my seat looked like. So I opened another tab and searched AViewFromMySeat.com a community-run site with blurry photos and random angles…yet somehow still more useful than Ticketmaster.
That’s when the question hit:
Why can a small community provide seat views, but the biggest ticketing company in the world can’t?
02 - THE FRUSTRATION STACK
Unclear price breakdown throughout the pages
Once I finally picked a seat, a second problem appeared: the price kept changing. Fees here… taxes there… totals that shifted depending on the screen.
It didn’t feel intentionally misleading — just unclear.
And I wondered:
If I’m annoyed after one purchase… what about millions of others?
03 - IT WASN’T JUST ME
Hundreds of people, same two problems (Credit: Los Angeles Times, Reddit Posts)
What felt like a personal frustration turned out to be a shared behavior pattern repeated across millions of users. Reddit threads. App Store reviews. UX breakdown videos. Even other designers building 3D POV prototypes. Everywhere, the same themes repeated:
“I can’t see my seat.”
“Pricing feels unclear.”
People were literally:
Watching YouTube venue walkthroughs
Comparing Reddit photos
Cross-checking images with strangers
Trusting crowd-sourced data over Ticketmaster
It became obvious:
Ticketmaster is used by everyone — and improved by no one.
SOLUtion
04 - LISTENING TO REAL USERS
User Frustrations uncovered during first round of interviews
I interviewed frequent concertgoers and sports fans. Their quotes were almost identical:
“I want to see the seats in a 3D view.”(Users struggle to understand seating and want a clearer, more intuitive seat selection experience.)
“The price not enough clear.”(Price clarity is a major trust-breaker when booking tickets.)
They didn’t want a complex, futuristic redesign.
They needed clarity.
05 - The Competitive and Technical Reality I had to Design For
Any solution had to work under real-world constraints: scale, peak traffic, older devices, and zero tolerance for delay.
From competitors (SeatGeek, StubHub, Gametime):
Some have 3D views
Some have photos
Almost all offer something Ticketmaster doesn’ttraffic.
But none scale to Ticketmaster’s
Competitors and intervention opportunity (credit: SeatGeek, gametime, Stubhub)
What Ticketmaster actually faces:
A monopoly = slow iteration & more bureaucracy
Massive load spikes (Taylor Swift, BTS, playoffs)
Millions on older devices
History of crashes under demand
Ticketmaster outage(credit: Daily Mail)
Even a 1-2 second delay can cost users their seat.(Assumption)
High-fidelity 3D images?
Thousands of seat-level photos per venue?
Not realistic — not at Ticketmaster scale.
And that’s when it clicked:
A beautiful but heavy solution isn’t a real solution.
It has to be instant. Reliable. Universal.
06 - THE CORE FOCUS
Ticketmaster has many problems but two were universal and emotional
07 - Understanding the People and the Flow (Before Designing Anything)
Before designing, I clarified who I was solving for and where their frustration happens. Two real personas emerged — not fictional, not fluff.
Emily — The Planner
Organizes the night. Doesn’t want to disappoint the group.
Quote: “If I’m spending $200, I want to know what I’m getting.”
Need: Confidence + clarity.
Jason — The Spontaneous Fan
Buys last-minute. Prioritizes speed with no fluff.
Quote: “I just want to buy fast without extra hassle.”
Need: Zero friction + fast load times.
clarity (for Emily) × speed (for Jason). Every design decision after this point is based on that balance.
Mapping the Flow
I broke down the existing journey:
Moment of Frustration
The two main frustrations occur here:
Seat Map → Section → Seat Selection
This is the exact moment users hesitate, leave the app, or cross-check external sites.
If POV arrives too late → useless.
If it arrives too early → slows Jason down.
So the solution had to appear at the moment of decision, not before or after.
08 - DESIGNING THE SOLUTION
Problem 1 — Users Can’t Visualize Their Seat View
I explored 3 paths:
Full 3D in-app visualization
Seat-level POV images
Section-level Pre rendered simple POV previews
Only the third made sense
Why this works:
3D maps → crash during high-demand events
Seat-level photos → thousands of assets
Heavy files → longer load times
Older devices → can’t handle large renders
3D previs experiments to validate whether low-poly shapes could clearly convey seat context.
Exploration of the placement of POV during the user flow
High Fidelity Mockup of POV in the actual Ticketmaster app
Problem 2 — Pricing feels unclear, fragmented, and mistrustful
My design decisions:
Unify pricing into one clear block
Show fees earlier (not at checkout)
Add a sticky price summary during seat browsing
Keep prices consistent across pages (no big surprise jumps)
Emphasize clarity over density
Why This Works:
Users hate surprise fees
Early clarity reduces emotional friction
Pricing transparency strengthens trust
Clear pricing = fewer abandoned carts
More trust = higher conversion
More consistent Prices across Pages
Even a 1-2 second delay can cost users their seat.(Assumption)
High-fidelity 3D images?
Thousands of seat-level photos per venue?
Not realistic — not at Ticketmaster scale.
And that’s when it clicked:
A beautiful but heavy solution isn’t a real solution.
It has to be instant. Reliable. Universal.
Result
09 - TESTING THE CONCEPT
I ran a comparative prototype test contrasting:
A: Original Ticketmaster flow
B: My POV + simplified pricing flow
Participants completed the same seat-selection task. To mitigate bias, 6 total flow completions (3 users × reversed order consecutively).
Rationale for Small Sample: Given the project's timeline (3 weeks) and zero resources, the goal was not statistical significance but to gather strong directional evidence and confidence scores necessary to greenlight future, large-scale A/B testing on the live product.
+54.5%
Seat Confidence
+21.95%
Overall Experience
+77.7%
Purchase Intent
66.7%
Preferred New Flow
Yet only 33.3% accepted 1–2 sec delays(which matched our assumptions)
Confirms lightweight section POV is the correct strategy.
10 - IMPACT OF THE REDESIGN
Decision-making becomes informed
Users finally see what their money buys.Trust increases
Clear pricing reduces anxiety and second-guessing.Performance stays stable
Lightweight POVs work even during peak demand.Users stop relying on external sites
Everything needed is finally in one place.The emotional experience improves
The stress is gone — replaced with confidence.Low Implementation Cost
The lightweight nature of the solution ensures high ROI with minimal engineering effort. The projected time required for front-end integration (POV Card + Transparent Pricing Block) is estimated to be 4-6 sprints (approximately 8-12 weeks), which is negligible compared to the $140 Million potential GTV unlock.
11 - Reflection
This project taught me how to:
Design within real technical and performance constraints
Convert emotional pain points into actionable UX decisions
Validate ideas with directional metrics and user interviews
Communicate visually and narratively
Prioritize when everything feels important
If continued, I’d explore:
Testing across more devices & low bandwidth conditions
Allowing venues to generate POVs using lightweight generative AI
Crowdsourced image verification
Ultra-light 180° renders for complex sections
13 - Thank you
A simple problem.
A universal frustration.
A lightweight, human solution.
