Alcheringa 2022 Application
Annual Cultural festival • IIT Guwahati • 2022
The Alcheringa app allows the user to view event schedules, artist details, navigate to the venue, shop merchandise, and even add events to their calendar.
Context
As part of the web design team of Alcheringa 2022, me and my friend were handed over the responsibility of designing the official application. Due to Covid restrictions of 2022, the festival was limited to just campus residents. It was also reduced to a span of 3 days and 2 nights. We were tasked to the design an application that would help the attendees have access to all the information about the cultural festival.
Brief
Alcheringa is the cultural fest of IIT Guwahati and has a wide variety of events ranging from dramatics to rock music to fashion show. There is a need of an application that would enable the attendees be updated about the festival and buy merchandise through the platform.
Goal
Design an application that enables all the attendees to access information about the annual cultural festival.
Process
Research
About Alcheringa
Understanding the Audience
Understanding the Theme
Define
User Personae
Requirements
Ideate
Ideating Solutions
MoSCoW Prioritisation
User Flows
Information Architecture
Design
Paper Wireframes
Digital Wireframes
Visual Language
Final Screens
Launch
User Testing
Developer Handover
what is alcheringa?
Alcheringa is the largest cultural festival of North East India and has a footfall of over 1.4 Lakhs. The cultural festival is spread over 3 days and 4 nights and attracts crowd from across India and also nieghbouring countries. People engage in events such as Pronites, Competitions, Campains etc. throughout the festival.
7 Modules with over 60+ Events,
Performances & Competitions.
Hybrid :Online and Offline
Crowd Management is to be done at the venues.
Only 2 Venues for Offline Events
& Performances.
who are the audience?
We surveyed campus residents and non-campus residents to empathize with them and understand their expectations with the festival.
Questions
Have you attended Alcheringa before?
What are your expectations with the festival?
How was your previous experience of Alcheringa?
Did you enjoy online/offline Alcheringa?
What do you like about Alcheringa?
Do you attend Alcheringa with anyone?
Did you have any difficulty in getting the passes?
Do you visit all the days in Alcheringa?
What is the most awaited moment for you in the festival?
What issues do you face during Alcheringa?
How do you keep a track of the events?
How do you manage your schedule?
Where do you get the information regarding events?
Do you know about the merchandise?
Key Responses
Every time to know about the event we have to go to Alcheringa’s social media handles and scroll to find, or check the email that also gets lost.
Getting the passes is a hard job. Usually, you have to call friends to arrange them .
My daughter is always pumped up about these events, but I usually am unaware about the happenings. There needs to be clear communication about faculty arrangements.
I am very excited for Crescendo. I will definitely attend the bollywood night.
I want to know what all is planned for this year and would like to attend technological events, because I love tech.
I usually don’t know what’s happening where, it’s the people’s Instagram stories from where I find that ‘this’ is/was happening there.
Key Insights
Difficulty in finding details about events.
Schedule management was difficult.
Online streaming of events was done in online mode.
People want to buy merchandise.
Last minute changes in venues and schedule caused problems.
Passes for events were mismanaged.
No information is known about shopping and stalls.
Location of Events was to be checked from Social media posts.
People are very enthusiastic about Pronites.
People attend events everyday.
People attending the festival first time are very excited.
Faculty and their dependants are usually unaware about the schedule.
The crowd in Pronites becomes unmanagable.
What is the theme of this year?
The theme story starts where 3 astronauts are shown voyaging to a new planet and later they are seen exploring 3 biomes of the unknown planet. These biomes are Crater, Dessert and Tropical. At the end they meet Alcher Lady in a cave.
2 colours were picked from each biome and an analysis was done to decide the theme colour for the application.
Biome 1
Biome 2
Biome 3
Blue
Prefered by men
Calmness
Serenity
Can trigger sadness
Productive
Intense
Inspiring
#1E248D
Violet
Imagination
Spirituality
Mystery
Royalty
Sensitivity
Intuition
Serenity
#7D95E4
Orange
Energetic
Attention grabing
Happiness
Enjoyment
Festive
Soothing
Positivity
#EE6337
Red
Danger
Warning
Caution
Aggressive
Dominance
Power
Avoidance
#C80915
Cyan
Liveliness
Youth
Energy
Calmness
Peace
Clean
Hygine
#11D3D3
Black
Power
Authority
Dominance
Formality
Sophistication
Elegance
Depth
#00010D
The characteristics of orange colour suited the best for the purpose. Thus, it was chosen as the theme colour.
who are our ideal users?
Based on the understanding of the different types of attendees, 4 personae were created to have a reference of users for the further of the process.
Aryan
21 Years
Pre-Final Year Student
Male
“The heat of the dance floor or the bass of the speakers are all that someone like me needs to enjoy the festival”
Goals
Know about the schedule
Know what is new
Frustrations
Cant manage the schedule during the festival.
Can’t keep a track on the venue changes
Hard Working
Curious
Innovative
Programming
Soozie
21 Years
Fresher Student
Male
“I LOVE THIS, the surroundings are so aesthetic and the environment is exactly what i had imagined”
Goals
Know about the festival
Find interesting events
Experience the campus
Frustrations
Unable to know the genre of event
Unable to plan the day
Techy
Geeky
Social
Adventure
Mitesh
24 Years
Non campus Resident
Male
“Alcheringa had caught my interest way back, ever since i have been going there every year with my friends to enjoy the festival and the winter nights”
Goals
Explore the festival
Buy merchandise
Frustrations
Needs to visit social media handles for information
Inaccessible contact information
Bossy
Undserstanding
Social
Innovative
Mrigankar
42 Years
Professor
Male
“I always like to enjoy with my family with whatever time i get. Alcher allows that to the full extent with a variety of events happening”
Goals
Enjoy with family
Attend events
Frustrations
Unable to find event information
Clash of interested events
Caring
Understanding
Engaging
Joyful
what are the requirements?
Based on the defined user persona and the research, we listed all the problems and requirements.
Crowd Management
Advertisement
Notification
More Interactive Interface
Personalized Schedule
Navigation Information
Contact Information
Schedule Management
Merchandise Availability
Reminders
E Pass
Communicating with friends
Stalls Information
Venue Information
Schedule Information
Campus map
Social Media Posts
Event Information
Merchandise Price
Recommended Events
creating a problem-solution matrix.
After listing the problems, we ideated on them and came out with feasible solution in terms of app features.
Problem
Solution
Merchandise price, size availability etc. are unclear
Merchandise Availability and price can be integrated in the application via a Shop feature
Location and Navigation problems during the festival
Campus map with tagged location of venues can be added
Contact Information of concerned authorities
Phone numbers and email addresses of concerned authorities can be shown
Event Information has to be obtained from social media posts and emails
Event cards with description, location, mode, genre etc. can be shown
Crowd Management on the venue
QR Code based passes for tracking the people count inside the permises
Passes for events is mismanaged
E Pass integration in the application can be done
Users forget about starting time of events
Reminders relates to registered events can be pushed to users through notifications
Notifications regarding change of timings and venue causes problems
Updates about venue changes, delays etc. can be pushed through notifications
Users have to go through mails and social media posts to know about the schedules
Schedule Information of the whole festival can be made available at one place
Users cannot plan their day or have to make notes about the events
Users can add events to their schedule
Information about shops and the type of things available for purchase has to be known by visiting them
Shops can be tagged on the campus map and related info can be shown
Social Media posts reach late to users and get lost in the feed
A feed for the social media updates can be integrated
Users need to communicate during the festival
Chat option with friends can be integrated
The usual app remains static and less interractive
Gamifying of the interface can be done
Users want to see more of what they are interested in
Users can be asked to select their interested genres and a customized feed based on their interest can be shown
Generate advertising opportunities
We can integrate a sponsors page and have an advertisement strip in cards/message popups.
Personalised feed
We suggested that during the signup process, we ask users to select their interested genres of events. At the back end we can tag all the event by genres and this way we can deliver personalised and more appropriate feed for our users.
Gamifying
We proposed the idea of Alcher points. This will be a game, where in the users can earn points by doing tasks.These points can then be reedemed against incentives and alcher goodies. I also proposed to have a live leaderboard in the app.
The tasks that the users are supposed to do:
Scan hidden QR codes across the venues and food stalls etc.Buying Merchandise on the AppReferring the App to other peopleSharing Alcheringa posts
what all features to prioritise?
We conducted MoSCow Analysis to determine the priority and importance of the features.
Must Have
Event Information
Merchandise Store
E Pass
Schedule of the Festival
Personalised Shedule
Personal Shedule of Fav Events
Contact information
Should Have
Ability to make personalised Schedule
Notification tab
Advertisement opportunities
QR Code based E passes
Could Have
Social media feed
Reminders
Stalls Information
Light and Dark theme
Live stream online events
Event Search Bar
Won’t Have
Alcher Points*
Campus Map
Communicating with Friends
what about the information architecture?
To organise all the features for a better user experience, an information architecture was mapped.
putting interface ideas to life.
We started ideating on the screens from creating layouts and sections on paper.
The next step was to convert these layouts into recognisable visuals for further designing of the final screens.
how is the final solution going to work?
giving interactive prototype a run.
Please check out our prototype of the application. Please click/tap on the text boxes to fill them.
testing the interface with our users.
We conducted user testing on some students to know about their experience while using the interface and fixed the issues and flows that were more prominent.
Some of the feedbacks and questions we received:
I like how the E Pass has been integrated to the app itself. It cuts down on the hassle so much.
The “My Schedule” feature is my favourite.
Does this also have a social media feed ?
Can the online event be streamed directly on this app?
More details about the merchandise on home page would be appreciated.
Nicely Executed.
handing over to the developers.
We pitched our design to the App Developer team via videos of prototypes, wireframes and sketches. We were simultaneously working with them to streamline the interactions and get the best output from the prototypes.
Some of the reviews on Google Playstore.
1 K+ Downloads
5.0 ( 235 Reviews )
our takeaways.
It was a great experience designing and working with a development team. The final iteration shapes up better with testing and feedback.
Working within a team brings new perception and possibilities.Observation of the user behaviour during testing along with verbal communication is a must.
Though some solutions seem better while ideating, but development constraints are to be kept in mind.
Designed with love by Rishikesh
