Overview
Townsquare, a platform for events, was facing a problem of slow load times and an outdated user interface that lacked consistency. Our team re-designed the interface to a modern look and rewrote the entire platform on a more scalable architecture. They also needed to integrate event ticketing and an admin panel.
About Townsquare
Townsquare is an online events discovery platform currently active in New Zealand that enables people to quickly find events of their interest and plan events with their friends. The platform also allows events organizers to submit and promote their events. The platform consists of a website, iOS app and Android app.
Tech-stack
The Problem
Townsquare's vision is to create the most efficient event discovery and event booking platform in New Zealand. They want people to have the most intuitive experience while looking for events of their interest, with how quickly users can discover events of their interest being the key metric.
A major problem was the load time of their website and app. The events search page took over 7 seconds to show results, and event details often took up to 30 seconds during times of high traffic. The issues had begun to crop up as the traffic to the platform increased and was often at its worst during hours of peak usage.
Another concern for them was that users had begun to complain about their outdated interface. The UI lacked a consistent design theme across pages and was far from intuitive. The Townsquare admins also lacked a full-fledged admin panel to manage the platform.
Lastly, event ticketing was missing from the platform.
The Solution
We focused first on creating a clear intuitive UI that was to be a differentiator for Townsquare. We experimented with a few designs, and finally settled on a theme based on minimalism that made common uses cases highly intuitive.
We then proceeded to redesign their database schema and create a much more scalable backend for the platform. We rewrote entire sets of APIs related to search, event categorization, recommendations, event submissions and promotions. We deployed the new platform on a scalable AWS web hosting environment.
We built the ticket booking system, integrated a payment gateway and developed features to allow people to manage their ticket bookings. This helped make the Townsquare platform a one-stop solution for people to find and book events.
Finally, we developed a full featured admin panel for the Townsquare admins to control the event listings and manage every aspect of the platform.
