Ticketmaster

Let’s face it —We all hate Ticketmaster.

Buying tickets has become way too difficult and stressful. Service fees are ridiculously high and speaking with customer service is a nightmare. But I’m not here to talk about everything we already know, I want to highlight another overlooked, yet easily fixable flaw—the ticket design.

Design Failures

Purchasing a ticket grants you access to a future event that you’ve been looking forward to for weeks or maybe even months. Your ticket should make you happy and create excitement for what's to come. The current Ticketmaster design is monotone, difficult to read, and feels like it was made on a typewriter.

Seat Location. Seat Location. Seat Location.
Aside from the scannable barcode, the most important information on a ticket is seat location. Without even thinking we should immediately know our section, row and seat number with nothing more than a quick glance. This information is not quickly discernible and has the same font size and style as the rest of the ticket.
Who and Where?
After seat location the most important set of information is the event name, location, time, day and date. It should be very clear that yes, unfortunately, I am attending a Katy Perry concert and it starts promptly at 7:30 pm on Saturday, February 3rd. All of this information is buried at the bottom of the ticket and hard to read because of the small font size and poor line spacing.
Supplemental Information.
Issued to and order number is the first set of information displayed. Although this is useful to include on the ticket, are they so important that it should appear first? I cannot ever remember a time when my name was referenced while the ticket was scanned. Order number is an internally generated identifier and useful to track purchases, but perhaps it can be relegated to a less important area.
No Branding?
Ticketmaster missed a great branding opportunity here. Aside from their logo, it is nearly impossible to determine from whom the ticket was purchased. This is a perfect chance to add a dash of color to a dull grey scheme that doesn’t match the style of the website or mobile app.
3 Shades of Grey.
Dark text on top of various shades of grey only make the remaining text even more difficult to read. Although this information is internally generated code for invoice/payment tracking, it does not have to be hard to read.

Design Changes

At first glance, this redesign takes a stale monotone look and brightens it up. By adding color and removing the grey background it makes the ticket easier to read and calls attention to certain attributes.

Seat Location.
I moved the seat location to the middle and aligned left so it is the first piece of information you see. I added a blue ribbon behind it with Ticketmaster’s brand color and changed the font color to white to show a stark contrast. I also increased the size so it’s the largest text on the ticket and chose a clear, bold and readable font.
Who and Where.
I placed Katy Perry and Tacoma Dome above the seat location and increased the font size, letter and line spacing. I moved the time, day and date to the bottom of the ticket and formatted the same. I wanted to modernize the aesthetic with a flat design but also keep a retro feel, so I chose the font style to emphasize this point.
Supplemental Information.
I moved the issued to and order number text to the right of the seat location to place slightly less emphasis on them but kept the same font size and style as the previous information.
Branding.
I changed the Ticketmaster logo to the website’s shade of blue, and removed the black background so it’s cleaner and easier on the eyes. As I mentioned previously, I added the blue ribbon behind the seat location to help highlight the fact that ticket was purchased on Ticketmaster. I kept the watermark on the left side as I believe it adds an element of authenticity.
No Shades of Grey.
I grouped the remaining text and placed them below the seat location and reduced the font to signify the information is supplemental. I also removed the grey background to make it easier to read.

Testing

I decided to test the new design to see how users responded to the changes. I recruited 10 people and split them into two even groups. I printed both the original and updated design and presented one to each group. I asked each participant one of the questions listed below and timed their response.

1. Where are you sitting?
2. Which artist are you seeing?
3. Where is the concert?
4. What time is the concert?
5. Where was the ticket purchased?

Results

Although this was a small sample size, the results were promising. Every user in group A outperformed their counterpart from group B except in one instance. The largest disparity in answer time came from the first question; where are you sitting? The time difference was nearly 2 seconds. The total amount of time saved with the updated design was 5.84 seconds.

Quantifying this data was really helpful to understand how much time can be saved by a few simple changes to the ticket arrangement.