Our group selected the ticket purchasing system to redesign. We agreed that this is one of the most important features of the site, and one that has ample room for improvement. Many users found the ticket buying process arduous and were disoriented by the Trip Advisor widget, the initial pop-up ticket window that seemed to confuse a few participants during some user tests. This pop-up window takes the user to a smaller window with a lot of initial information. It was not obvious to all users what they needed to do to complete their goal of buying a ticket. Each step had barriers to the participants’ understandings of what they needed to do next. Overall, this adds to the cognitive load a user may experience at a time while decisions are being made. As soon as they completed one step, the next step caused them to reorient themselves all over again.
Instead of a pop-up window, we propose that the Norman Rockwell Museum (NRM) implements a proprietary purchasing feature within its own website to maintain uniformity, control, and consistent aesthetics. By standardizing the checkout page with the rest of the website, there is a hope that the user will feel more comfortable using it. Through this, our redesign aims to decrease confusion and cognitive load on the user during the ticket buying process, making the experience more user-friendly. Our proposed redesign will simplify the process of buying tickets through reducing the ticket selection to a single page with all discount options placed into a single drop down per ticket. We’ve also combined the general museum visit and the “visit + studio tour” options by adding a section on the ticket buying page where a user can opt in to the tour and select their desired tour time underneath this option. Below, we have included a prototype for our proposed redesign of the NRM’s ticket purchasing page. Individual elements have annotations that provide further details beneath the prototype. While creating this prototype, the following ideas guided us:
- The pop-up ticket interface should be removed and replaced. This interface caused a host of problems for users. By replacing this with a set of pages that are standard across most ecommerce websites, users will be more familiar and comfortable with navigating the ticketing process.
- Simplify the ticket types. The current ticketing system has multiple locations to select ticket types, whether that is just a museum visit or a “visit + studio tour”, an adult or child ticket, and then a drop down for additional ticket discounts. Streamlining how a user can purchase their desired ticket means that potential confusion regarding the next step(s) can be greatly reduced.
- A standardized checkout page. The pop-up box that is currently on the NRM’s website is unique in its formatting and interface compared with the rest of the website. By replacing it with more commonly found formats, forms, layouts, and interfaces the user will feel more comfortable utilizing them.
- Inclusive design. Our redesign considers that many users will need a design that enables users of all backgrounds and various ability levels. Exclusive designs create usability issues when a user does not fit a specific circumstance, but an interface is able to reduce these usability issues through inclusive designs that include a flexible display that is able to be accessed by as many users as possible.
- Our ticketing page brings all variables for your ticket onto a single page, where previously they existed over two or more pages. The calendar is now prominently displayed on the ticket selection page, this leads the user through a very clear process, starting with selecting the day they want to to come, the number of tickets they need, what types of tickets, and finally whether they’d like a studio tour.
- This dropdown displays a list of all ticket types available and replaces the two separate sections for ticket type and ticket discount. All prices are clearly displayed next to each type so the user can quickly browse all categories and select the most affordable type that applies to them. The most common ticket types are bolded and placed on top of the list to expedite selection for the user. Additionally, these dropdowns populate as additional tickets are added in a 1:1 ratio, making it explicit to the user what discounts are being applied to which tickets.
- This section makes adding a studio tour for the group of tickets very simple for the user, with two clicks to opt-in and select a time. Previously this was achieved on a different page and prompted an entirely different set of ticket prices. On top of simplifying the process, the call-to-action and clear pricing information will hopefully increase the purchase of studio tours.