Love Is Human

Love Is Human's first version of show discovery was a single chronological feed of every upcoming show on the platform — no grouping, no relevance signal, and filters buried behind an "Advanced search" link almost nobody clicked. Bands kept posting; fans kept bouncing.

The pattern was blunt: returning fans landed on the feed, scrolled a few rows, didn't see anything obviously for them, and closed the tab. That's a discovery problem masquerading as a content problem — there were plenty of shows, fans just couldn't find the right ones.

I ran usability sessions with fans who use platforms like Bandsintown and Songkick to plan their week, and reviewed funnel analytics on the existing feed alongside them. I used ChatGPT and Claude to cluster findings and draft personas, cutting synthesis time roughly in half. The fastest insight came from the sessions themselves: fans were treating the feed like a search engine, but it was behaving like a notification feed.

Out of that came a composite persona — Sam — who stands in for the user the redesign had to win.

The IA had to support a single fan journey end-to-end — from landing to ticket purchase. Everything else on the platform (band profiles, music previews, merch, newsletter) is supporting context for that journey. Mapping it explicitly kept the design honest: every screen had to earn its place in the flow.

I sketched the whole platform on paper first — discovery, show detail, band profile, music player, event hero — to lock in information architecture before getting precious about pixels. The four screens that mattered most for the show-discovery story were drawn over a single afternoon, with margin notes capturing the features (filters, newsletter, ticketing, festival resources) and the constraint that fans should be able to decide on a show in under three seconds per card.

Greyscale digital wireframes locked in the grid, component sizes, and IA before any color or brand decisions. The biggest commitment here was the three-column desktop layout — a persistent left sidebar for browse modes, a center feed of show cards, and a right rail for filters always in view. That structure became the spine of every other screen.

Before pushing into hi-fi, I locked the visual system: a dark canvas, white type, and a single purple accent. The dark theme lets show artwork — the most varied content on the page — be the loudest visual element on every screen. Purple anchors interactive moments (CTAs, active filters, badges) so fans always know what's tappable.

The visual treatment uses a dark canvas, white type, and a single purple accent — chosen to read as "music platform" rather than "generic SaaS," and to stay distinct from competitors like Bandsintown (red) and Songkick (white). The dark theme also lets show artwork — the most varied content on the page — be the loudest visual element on every screen.

Four screens carry the show-discovery story end to end. Each is a clickable hi-fi mockup, not a flat image:

The headline result was a 25% lift in user retention on the platform after the redesign shipped — fans were finding shows they wanted to attend, and coming back to find more. The filters that had been buried behind "Advanced search" now lived in the right rail and were used regularly. The show detail page, by surfacing venue, price, and lineup together, did the conversion work the discovery feed couldn't.