BARI BASS & BEATS
Event Discovery App Re-design
Role: Senior Product UI & UX Designer
Client: Municipality of Bari
Duration: 8 months
Platforms: iOS/Android Mobile, Web
Challenge & Goal
BACKGROUND
Full UX/UI redesign of a local music event discovery app for Bari, Italy. Evolved from a dark, genre-agnostic prototype to a clean, accessible, end-to-end ticketing experience serving the city's growing live music scene.
CHALLENGE
The original Bari Bass & Beats app was a dark-themed prototype with low information hierarchy, inconsistent components, and no real end-to-end flow. It failed to reflect the energy and diversity of Bari's live music scene, and offered no clear path from discovery to ticket purchase. A full restyling was needed, one that could serve both locals and the high volume of festival visitors the city attracts.
GOAL
✓ Re-Design a complete, navigable app from sign-in to ticket download
✓ Improve visual clarity and reduce cognitive load across all screens
✓ Support both Bari residents and event-tourists with clear UX flows
✓ Build a scalable design system with light/dark mode parity
✓ Increase conversion from event discovery to completed ticket purchase
Earlier Version
Design Process
Audit & research: Evaluated the existing prototype through a heuristic walkthrough and mapped the end-to-end user journey from event discovery to ticket download. Identified three primary friction points: no clear path from genre browsing to event listing, no in-app ticket management, and a dark-only UI that created contrast failures under venue lighting conditions.
UX strategy: Prioritised the redesign around two user segments: locals browsing weekly events, and out-of-town festival visitors arriving with a specific event intent. Each required a different entry point into the same content, which shaped the home screen information hierarchy.
Wireframes & prototyping: Produced low-fidelity flows for the four critical paths: discovery → event detail, genre browsing → filtered results, checkout, and post-purchase ticket access. Tested with five local users recruited via the Municipality's community channels.
UI design: Delivered high-fidelity screens in both light and dark mode. Built a component system covering cards, genre tiles, ticket states, and QR display, designed for scalability as the event calendar grows.
Handoff & QA: Provided annotated Figma specs for iOS and Android. Reviewed implementation against WCAG 2.1 AA contrast requirements across both modes.
Refactoring
User Experience Improvements
High-Fidelity Execution & Validation
Abstract user journeys were rapidly scaled into 11 high-fidelity screens backed by a component-driven design system featuring explicit type scales, color tokens, and native light/dark parity.
Contextual Realism: Populated layouts with authentic localized data (Arctic Monkeys, Eremo Club) to ensure the interface was grounded in real-world utility.
Discovery & Strategic Alignment
I identified that the existing prototype had been designed for a single user type (a young local music fan), but the Municipality’s
actual audience included a significant proportion of visitors attending multi-day festivals with different navigation needs. For this reason, my intention was to make the workflows easy to navigate for everyone and consistent across use cases. To unify the different ways the app is used by the user segments described above, I also designed the “My Tickets” flow with offline QR access, specifically addressing the fact that venue connectivity is often unreliable at outdoor events, a constraint the original brief had not accounted for.
Results
Design Impact: Before & After
Earlier Version
❌ Dark-only, low contrast, no accessibility ❌ No complete booking flow ❌ Inconsistent typography & spacing ❌ No loyalty or social features ❌ Genre browsing disconnected from events ❌ No ticket management or QR code
Refactoring
✔️ Light & dark mode, WCAG-compliant ️️️✔️ End-to-end discovery → checkout → ticket ✔️ Unified component system throughout ✔️ Favorites, reviews, and profile stats ✔️ Genre grid linked to live event listings ✔️ My Tickets with QR code & download