Responsive Design
Doors @ 8
Project Scope & Details
Duration: 2.5 weeks
My Role: Project Manager / UX Designer
Team: 1 Lead Designer, 2 other UX Designers
Impact: Our goal was to make ticket-buying less stressful, more transparent, and genuinely enjoyable. We focused on features like price transparency, chat-driven event coordination, and secure ticket resale based on real user feedback and competitive analysis.
Everyone’s Got a Ticketmaster Horror Story.
You know the one. Waiting in a virtual queue for what feels like a lifetime, finally getting in, only to see ticket prices skyrocket before your eyes thanks to “dynamic pricing,” and then somehow still getting beat by scalpers. Oh, and don’t forget the mystery fees tacked on at checkout for... reasons?
Yeah. We were over it too. So, we asked ourselves: What if buying tickets didn’t feel like surviving the Hunger Games?
That’s how Doors @ 8 was born. A fresh take on event ticketing that puts the user experience first. No migraines, no surprise fees, no bots snagging all the good seats.
Just a smoother, fairer, and actually enjoyable way to score tickets. Here's how we made it happen.
Sure, there are apps with better aesthetics, but most people are stuck with Ticketmaster, the app that leaves them feeling frustrated and exhausted.
The experience (tickets disappearing, prices changing, fees springing up) was draining users, and we knew it could be better.
We had an opportunity to fix this. We wanted to create a ticketing experience that was simple, transparent, and social. No more surprise fees, no more unpredictability. We knew if we could design a more user-friendly process, we could take the stress out of the experience for people who just wanted to enjoy a night out.
We asked ourselves some pretty direct questions:
How might we make buying tickets feel like part of the excitement and not a buzzkill?
How do we make the process transparent, with no hidden fees or surprise price hikes?
How can we turn this into a social experience that keeps people engaged from the start of the journey, not just at the event?
These questions laid the foundation for Doors @ 8. A platform built to solve the pain points users were facing in the ticket-buying experience.
Creating a solid persona was crucial to keep the user at the center of all design decisions. After conducting 12 user interviews, I synthesized the data to create Cameron, a persona that represents the typical user for Doors @ 8.
Cameron is the type of person who loves a good night out but has had enough of the stressful, disjointed ticket-buying process. She’s the one who always buys tickets for her group of friends and manages the logistics, but the constant switching between apps and the confusing pricing structure has made her burnout.
By creating Cameron, we were able to focus our design on her needs:
Clear, upfront pricing so she knows exactly what she’s paying.
Easy, centralized ticket sharing so she doesn’t need to juggle multiple apps.
Social features that make coordinating plans and splitting costs easier.
To help guide our design decisions, we used the MoSCoW method to prioritize the features that would have the most impact. The MoSCoW method helped us focus on the must-haves and keep the project on track, ensuring we didn’t lose sight of the essential features.
Price Transparency
We knew users were tired of the unpredictability of dynamic pricing, so we kept the price static and always visible. The price is displayed in a floating footer, ensuring it’s always within view, making it clear and simple for users to know what they’re actually paying without any surprises.In-App Chat and Ticket Sharing
Users often buy tickets for the group and then struggle to keep everyone in the loop. We brought everything into one place by adding an in-app chat feature. This allowed users to easily invite friends, share tickets, and split costs, all within the app, saving them from jumping between Venmo, Ticketmaster, and iMessages.Resale and Scalping Prevention
Scalping and price gouging were huge pain points, so we made sure resale tickets could only be shared within the app and at face value. We were inspired by Dice’s approach, where tickets can’t be screenshotted, preventing scalping. For resale, tickets couldn’t be sold for more than the price they were purchased for, and users had the option to donate tickets. This kept everything fair and transparent.
To ensure we were designing something that not only met but exceeded user expectations, we looked to other platforms for inspiration:
Dice’s Resale System: Dice inspired us with their model of preventing ticket scalping by not allowing users to screenshot QR codes. This was key in shaping how we handled ticket sharing by making sure tickets could only be transferred within the app and at face value.
Spotify’s Playlist-Like Event Discovery: For the event feed, we drew inspiration from how music apps like Spotify organize content in a visual, curated playlist style. This made event discovery feel more personalized and less overwhelming for users.
By analyzing competitors, we were able to adopt their best features while adding our own twists based on user needs.
Once we had our core decisions in place, we turned our attention to refining the design.
Home Screen: We organized events like playlists: curated, visual, and easy to browse. No endless scrolling, no overwhelming grids. Just a clean feed that users wanted to explore.
Event Page: Every event had clear pricing, accessibility info, and venue details. No hidden surprises, just everything users needed to know upfront.
Chat + Ticket Sharing: The chat feature wasn’t just a messaging tool. It was integrated into the entire ticket-buying experience. By enabling users to chat, share tickets, and split costs, we kept them engaged without leaving the app to coordinate with friends.
