How can usability and visuality encourage people to visit the philharmonic?
I had the problem that in my city there is the Silesian Philharmonic - a place representing a fairly high artistic level, but hardly visited by anyone. In conversations with friends, the repeated opinion was that people preferred the other concert hall. The reason is not only the acoustics, but also an image issue and the ease of using the website and checking the repertoire, among other things. I thought it was worth checking it out and eventually trying to make it better.
I used the Nielsen heuristics – developed by Jakob Nielsen, a renowned usability expert. These heuristics serve as a set of guidelines to evaluate the usability of user interfaces.
If, instead of reading about the analysis now, you would like to see the final solution, click here
#1 Visibility of system status
In the English language version of the website, some elements still appear in Polish and the system does not communicate which version of the website is displayed. This can lead to confusion and confusion for the user.
Under hero section there is no header for the next section, making it unclear what is actually displayed.
The calendar with events overlaps the first section, making it unclear how the two elements are related.
#2 Match between system and the real world
Some elements, such as icons and symbols, may not be immediately recognizable to all users.
The buttons to change the month forwards / backwards are not located at the top of the calendar, but at the very bottom of the section - they do not relate directly to the selection of the month.
When, as a user, I want to find out more about an event I further want to access information such as the date, time or venue.
After clicking on a date, we are redirected to the page of the specific concert, but the selected date is not marked as active on the calendar.
Usage of language flags can be confusing - the use of words in specific languages makes the message easier to read.
#3 User control and freedom
No filtering and no possibility to see archive concerts from the repertoire level.
Concerts are not categorized.
To see, for example the next month's concerts you have to scroll - no shortcut for this activity.
Concerts only have a date, with no time given from the repertoire level. To find out, you have to click on the details of the event in question. This makes it difficult to compare events
#4 Consistency and standards
Concert date is invisible when hovering over the cursor.
Lack of explanation of the designations used (for example [A] in the description of the concert venue)
The hierarchy of information is hard to understand – no distinctions such as different font sizes.
#5 Error prevention
When submitting forms, the website lacks real-time validation or error messages that inform users about specific issues with their inputs.
#6 Recognition rather than recall
Providing information out of context - the floor plan is most relevant when choosing a venue and should therefore appear when looking at information on a specific concert.
The website does not show the most recently viewed concerts or adapt to the user in any other way.
#7 Flexibility and efficiency of use
The chronicle aka archive concerts can simply be part of the calendar.
If we use the idea of a calendar, we can show both future and archived events without having to create another tab and complicate the information architecture.
The chronicle also lacks the possibility of filtering - for example selecting a specific date from the past.
#8 Aesthetic and minimalist design
The descriptive parts are long and do not have reading enhancements such as bolding, quotation marks or separation of smaller parts.
The text lines are of optimal length for comfortable reading.
The calendar is treated as a permanent element of the interface - it accompanies the user unchanged on every possible page, regardless of whether the currently displayed content links to it.
#9 Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
Many places on the website do not support the English language version, but only some of them show this fact.
Content suggestion is worth considering - for example whether a foreigner should be suggested to view content in Polish or whether a call to action should perhaps have different content.
When a form submission fails, there is no clear indication of the specific error or guidance on how to resolve it, making it difficult for users to diagnose and recover from errors.
#10 Help and documentation
The website includes a contact page with a contact form and email address for users to seek assistance. However, there is no dedicated help or documentation section that provides answers to frequently asked questions or detailed instructions.
Main process to redesign
I relied on Nielsen heuristics to make the work go smoothly and the outcome turned out to be going to a rewarding concert in the context of concert selection. I chose to redesign actions that fit within the concert selection process. This decision is dictated by the informative nature of the site, which points to concert attendees and people interested in music as the main users.
Final solution
What have I learned?
Applying Nielsen's heuristics helped me identify usability issues within the existing website. This exercise taught me to critically evaluate interface designs. Addressing these heuristics could improved the overall usability of the website.
What will I do better in the future?
I would like to carry out a heuristic analysis with potential users of the site and then test the proposed solution so as to reduce the risk of designing to their beliefs.
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