Introduction
Goldstar’s mission is to encourage people to go out more often by providing access to discounted live events, theater, concerts, and more. However, the platform was struggling with user engagement, and a large percentage of users were bouncing from the app due to an unengaging and ineffective feed-based interface.
As Lead Product Designer, my role was to redesign the core product experience for both web and native platforms. We aimed to shift from an interaction-heavy, feed-driven experience to one that immediately connected users to the breadth of our inventory. This overhaul involved a deep information architecture (IA) revamp, a fresh look at user interaction patterns, and comprehensive testing to ensure that our redesign would boost engagement and conversions.
Challenges
Goldstar's original app architecture was centered around a feed that relied on user interaction (likes, purchases, social connections) to populate relevant content. For users who didn’t interact much, the feed often appeared empty or irrelevant, leading to high bounce rates and low ticket purchases.
The primary challenges we aimed to address were:
• Low user engagement and high bounce rates due to ineffective feed content.
• Inefficient discovery of events, causing users to leave the app before making a purchase.
• Outdated interface design, which did not cater to the evolving needs of our user base.
We needed to not only redesign the user interface but also completely revamp the information architecture to ensure users could easily discover events and make purchases without friction.
Approach
We began the process with an audit of the existing app flows, identifying points of friction and drop-off areas. It became clear that the home screen feed wasn’t effectively driving users toward events, so we aimed to create a more focused landing experience that could direct users to Goldstar's rich event inventory immediately.
The IA revamp extended beyond the home screen to all connected pages. We wanted the entire experience to feel more cohesive, making event discovery the central focus.
Given that 70% of Goldstar’s traffic came from mobile, we started our redesign efforts on the native app. We held mini-team sprints where we explored different native solutions, keeping our demographic in mind (predominantly women aged 35-60).
After a week of whiteboard sessions, we transitioned these ideas into low-fidelity prototypes, iterating quickly to test the viability of different flows. The goal was to create designs that aligned with the needs of our users while minimizing cognitive load.
To ensure the redesign would resonate with users, we conducted extensive user testing. We started with low-fidelity click tests to evaluate basic user orientation, followed by high-fidelity user flow tests to validate the overall user experience.
We gathered feedback from multiple sources:
• Goldstar’s Facebook group served as an engaged testing base for remote feedback.
• In-person testing through guerrilla research, where we interacted with users at coffee shops and public spaces.
• Unmoderated flow testing within usertesting.com
The insights from these tests helped narrow our concepts down to two strong contenders. After more rigorous testing within the live Android platform, Version B emerged as the winner. This version provided a sense of orientation and grounding for users, even without a traditional tab bar. The design was intuitive, and users felt more confident navigating the app.
Once we had a clear direction, we mapped out every potential use case, focusing on the heart of the app: the discover modal. This feature needed to provide seamless navigation between events and relevant actions (ticket selection, reviews, social sharing). We emphasized interaction design to guide users through contextual cues and animations, reducing the need for heavy onboarding. By providing subtle transitions and feedback through animation, users felt more engaged and confident in using the app without feeling overwhelmed.
While the app primarily focuses on event discovery, we also improved the search functionality by incorporating keyword search. Although search wasn’t the primary discovery method for Goldstar, we recognized that enhancing search results would help retain users who preferred a more direct approach to finding events.We conducted research on best practices for search in relation to Goldstar’s specific inventory type and implemented those insights to elevate search results and keep users browsing.
Results
Following a slow rollout of the redesigned experience—first on native platforms and then on desktop—we saw remarkable improvements in user behavior. Over the course of two months, tracked through Google Analytics, the data revealed:
• Event page views increased from 1.40% to 23.40%.
• Selected tickets jumped from 0.50% to 9.70%.
• Purchased events rose from 0.10% to 2.90%.
These metrics demonstrated that the redesigned experience had a profound impact on user engagement and conversion rates. The streamlined user flows, enhanced interaction design, and improved event discovery helped us exceed expectations and revitalized the Goldstar platform.
Conclusion
The redesign of Goldstar’s app and web experience was a resounding success. By focusing on event discovery, user engagement, and streamlined interaction design, we were able to significantly boost conversions and make the platform more enjoyable for our target demographic.
The success of this project was rooted in our iterative design approach, constant user feedback, and attention to interaction design. Goldstar is now better positioned to achieve its mission of encouraging people to go out more often, with a product that users not only love but also trust. As our senior most Product Designer, this project was both a creative challenge and a rewarding journey, leading to one of Goldstar’s most impactful transformations to date.
