The Process:
I began with a list of elements that would need to be on the website such as a staff page, information about classes, who’s teaching, etc, and a vague idea on how they should be laid out. With this type of event, many users utilize Facebook as a primary tool to gather information, and it was my mission to find out why.
I interviewed five different dancers who went to weekend long events both in their home city and places they traveled to. My goal was to find what sorts of information they went to an event’s website for, how often, when in the process, how close to the event, etc. Did users want to read bios of teachers, staff, and DJs? How many people read the code of conduct, and is it important?
As a whole, our users felt the most important things were the schedule, purchasing a ticket, the code of conduct, and information about registration. All of our users went to the site at least twice, once to buy a ticket, and during the event itself to find the schedule.
I conducted open card sorts with our users to discover what categories made sense to them, and what had worked in the past.