Festival360°

UN Sustainable Development Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being

A centralised platform for safer festival experiences

Festival360° is a centralised platform designed to provide a safe and seamless festival experience. By facilitating easy access to both peer support and professional resources, it aims to promote better long-term health outcomes. The platform integrates real-time health and safety tools through two primary channels: a mobile app and on-site kiosks. I contributed to its overall visual and interaction design.

The Double Diamond

To arrive at our solution from the initial problem - we structured the entire project around a popular design process framework: the Double Diamond model — supporting divergent and convergent thinking across four phases: Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver.

Discovery: Understanding the initial problem space

As a team including festival-goers and non-festival-goers, we initiated research by conducting literature reviews and competitive analysis. We found out that current prevention methods rely heavily on deterrence through fear rather than providing festival-goers with safe spaces for education and harm reduction.

Define: Reframing the problem

To make sense of all our data, we synthesized the data collected and framed them around our target users.

Key User Persona: Who are we designing for?

Data Synthesis: Understanding our users

Empathy map

Develop: From problem to solution

After reframing the problem, we faced the challenge of developing a concept that leverages self-reliance and peer support to promote harm reduction within festival environments. To aid this process, we first used reverse thinking followed by Crazy 8's to facilitate rapid concept generation.

Here's some process work from a ~pretty~ intensive crazy-thinking session.

Between 3 team members we were able to successfully generate 24 ideas. With consideration for time constraints of our project, we began sketching out and storyboarding some of the prioritised ideas to provide more context and establish common ground for the team.

Here's some of the concept sketches I contributed:

We developed our top 3 ideas further through storyboarding - illustrating exactly how the solution should function:

How did we choose the winning concept?

To choose between them, we evaluated all three against a 12-point Pugh matrix, scoring usability, feasibility, and alignment with user needs across criteria like anonymity preservation, whether the concept leveraged existing peer-support culture, and whether it could work across both digital and physical touchpoints. The winner was: 🏆 Festival360

Deliver: An iterative process of designing and refining

The team followed an iterative prototyping process: validating our designs at each stage, involving both design professionals and our actual target demographic.

Iteration 1: Establishing Usability

After creating initial low-fidelity wireframes, we conducted usability testing with 5 participants. We made 25+ iterations to our initial wireframes.

• Lack of task completion feedback → Introduced confirmation screens for user confidence

• Privacy concerns in sign-up flow → Limited data collection to essential details (email only)

• Ambiguity in group invitations → Added group previews & inviter identification to invitations

Iteration 2: Enhancing Intuitiveness

After transforming our wireframes into initial mockups, we tested with 6 participants. We made 30+ iterations based on user feedback.

• Error prevention for usernames/passwords → Introduced real-time validation & error messaging

• Streamlined sign-up process → Added a "Generate" button for randomized usernames

• Enhanced map usability → Differentiated people vs. amenities and integrated filters

Iteration 3: Final Refinements

After iterating our mockups based on user feedback, we refined visual hierarchy and cross-platform consistency between app and kiosk.

• Improved UI hierarchy in groups → Highlighted user avatars when updates were posted

• Clarified button labels → Changed "Scan Below" to "Scan My Keypass Below"

• Consistent visual design → Unified kiosk and app UI elements for cohesive branding

Designed to resonate with Gen Z festival-goers

The Festival360° brand identity was designed to resonate with Gen Z festival-goers—balancing approachability with credibility in a sensitive health context.

Design System

Our design system established a cohesive, scalable, and visually consistent framework, ensuring that Festival360° maintains a professional, intuitive, and engaging experience across all touchpoints. By standardising typography, colour schemes, UI components, and avatars, we created a seamless and recognisable identity that enhances usability while aligning with the vibrant, dynamic nature of festival culture.

From concept to implementation

Although Festival360° was developed as a university project, we outlined practical considerations for real-world deployment at festivals.

• Hardware & software specifications to guide development partners
• Setup instructions for seamless deployment at festival sites
• Potential limitations and mitigation strategies to address edge cases

Future Work

Looking ahead, we identified four directions:

• Kiosk Bluetooth location sharing — using kiosks as offline 'location anchors' so friends can find each other without internet access, while also conserving battery and enhancing privacy.
• Power-saving mode — adjusting location-tracking intervals to help users get through a full festival day without their phone dying.
• A festival organisers' platform — giving organisers a backend analytics tool with real-time data on crowd flows, popular areas, and high-demand amenities, to optimise layout and resource allocation.
• Marketing partnerships — collaborating with festivals and artists on perks like early ticket access or VIP experiences, and with local vendors on check-in discounts, to drive adoption organically.

Reflections

~ Serena