It’s hard to summarize a project that spanned well over a year and a half, and touched upon every aspect of the experience and interface for a site that receives 20 million pageviews and sells millions of concert tickets in any given month as the sole designer. But I’ll try.

There were a few major goals that drove the project from the start. One of those, was to provide fans with more shows and more relevant shows when they visit the home page of the site. One of the ways we did that was to use larger event “cards” than had been used in the past, that were more image-focused and were not overloaded with text. We also grouped similar shows, so that instead of seeing a page plastered with Journey because they’ve got 7 upcoming shows in a major metropolitan area, we show one card with an indicator that there are more shows if that venue or date isn’t convenient for the user.

Another major goal was to completely reinvent the search experience, which is the single most-used feature on the site. We simplified the search process, aided by Algolia we greatly increased the accuracy and relevance of the search suggestions a user sees when they start typing. We also display a user’s recent searches and popular searches to possibly save the user from even having to type a search term at all. We rearrange the order of the suggested results so that a user sees whichever grouping (Artists, Venues, or Events) at the top, depending on which best matches the keyword that’s been typed.

The third major goal is to show users contextually relevant shows and information. The first way we do that is by using a users location to drive the shows they see. We display the location prominently on each page so they can change it if necessary, and whether they’re on the home page, an event page, or an artist page we first show them shows that are in their area.