Authenticks

Background

Project Overview

• Team: Myself

• Duration: 1.5 month

• My Role: Research, ideation, user flows, wireframing, visual design, prototyping

• Tools: Sketch, Photoshop, Balsamiq, Draw.io, paper and pencil

• Deliverable: MVP mobile app design prototype

Problem

As ticketed events continue to be an extremely popular and limited commodity, the ticket resale market will unfortunately be rampant with scammers trying to take advantage of others.

How can fraud and scams be eliminated from the secondhand ticket resale market?

Solution

Authenticks is an app I designed around the principle of removing risks associated with buying and selling secondhand tickets before any transaction is even completed. With there being many avenues for discovering buyers and sellers already, Authenticks was created as means to fulfill trusted transactions between direct individuals only instead of being its own marketplace. This allows it to be much more versatile in serving anyone regardless of where they found their buyer or seller from.

Buyers can actively protect themselves by using Authenticks to scan and validate both physical and digital tickets on the spot to get instant assurance that tickets are real and valid for use before purchase. Scans identifying invalid tickets immediately block the payment process from initiating. It also safeguards buyers from after-purchase scams like duplicate or refunded tickets by invalidating the code of the original ticket and creating an entirely new proxy code to be used in its place.

The seller is also secured as their tickets are put on hold after authentication and only transfer over once payment is confirmed.

Existing resale platforms mostly help buyers with scams by the time it is too late: after they've discovered it at the door. At that point, “money-back guarantees” are not enough.

Consumers that end up with fake or unusable tickets typically end up with losses in other ways that can’t be remedied merely with ticket refunds such as time, travel expenses, hotel accommodations, and missing out entirely on experiences they wanted to be a part of.

These are common situations in which Authenticks would be helpful, exemplified through incorporating the personas I established:

1)  Directly sending mobile tickets and payments safely and securely

Alison cannot attend Summer Concert due to another plan she forgot about. She’s experiencing difficulty selling her mobile ticket as buyers are wary of sending payment first while she herself is leery of transferring her ticket with the possibility of not getting money in return. Normally, one party must always always take the risk in first sending their end of the bargain.

As Brandon is looking for a last minute ticket, he sees Alison’s for sale post on the concert’s Facebook page and messages her. He informs her about the Authenticks app as a way for them to safely do business and ensure that they both can avoid being scammed.

Alison initiates a sale with Brandon through the app and submits her digital ticket for verification. The ticket gets validated and is then placed on hold while Brandon is notified that the ticket is authentic and is prompted to pay. The ticket only transfers over once he completes payment. Both parties are protected in this transaction.

2)  Buying physical tickets that are verified to be authentic during the exchange

Brandon became skeptical of buying secondhand hard tickets because in the past he fell victim to receiving a printed fake, a common scheme from scammers. He recalls being turned away at the show and his friends having no choice but to leave him behind as he returned to the hotel alone. He is extremely disappointed that he missed the show and lost out on all the money he spent on the ticket and hotel.

Now with Authenticks, he meets up Alison and confidently buys her physical ticket without concern as he is immediately informed of its authenticity before he makes any sort of payment.

3)  Buying a digital ticket without risk that another copy of it may be used by someone else or that the ticket will be refunded after the purchase

Brandon is cautious of buying secondhand digital tickets because aside from possibly being forged, it’s possible for them to be duplicated or refunded by the seller after he purchases it.

Authenticks alleviates those fears for him because when it verifies the digital ticket and he has it transferred over to him after payment, the original ticket code is invalidated and an entirely new code is created in its place. This security measure prevents duplicates from working or refunds to the original ticket owner from being possible.

The steps in which a seller would find a buyer. Connecting with a buyer can be accomplished through either searching for them by their username or alternatively through scanning their code if meeting face to face.

When a ticket holder chooses to sell their digital ticket, they must upload it for validation by the app. If the ticket is identified as invalid, the transaction is cancelled. If the ticket is authentic, it is only transferred over if payment is confirmed by the buyer.

For selling hard copies of tickets, the seller must present the ticket to the buyer for them to scan and validate the ticket on their end. I consciously designed this process to have the scanning done by the buyer to help alleviate any concerns they might have about possible falsification of authentication results from the seller. By performing the scanning first hand like security personnel would at an event, buyers will feel more assurance from the results they receive.

Interviews

I explored various event pages and online groups dedicated to ticket resales and looked for individuals that either conveyed worries of potentially being scammed or were alerting others of scams they were targeted by.

After reaching out, I was able to interview 9 people about what their biggest issues were when it came to navigating secondhand ticket resales and the scams associated with it. From their feedback, I identified the most prevalent problems to inform my feature design decisions.

User Stories

After gathering the responses from talking with both ticket holders and potential buyers, I distilled the most egregious frustrations into user stories for features that the design behind Authenticks should address.

As a user, I want…

• a way to verify that the ticket I am buying is authentic
• a way to verify that the ticket I am buying is unused
• to be assured that duplicate tickets cannot be used by others
• to be assured that the original ticket owner cannot refund the ticket after I buy
• to transfer over my digital tickets only when I receive payment
• to send payment only if the ticket I’m purchasing is valid
• a secure and easy way to pay for my ticket
• to be able to pay for ticket online or with cash
• the ability to transfer money from selling tickets directly into my bank account

All the following user flows incorporate 2 users, seller and buyer. Steps between the 2 users that are shown making contact indicate that they are connected and happening simultaneously.

This is the initial user flow for a user starting from the main screen. They can either view their tickets, available funds for transferring to their bank, or find a ticket buyer via username search or QR code scanning.

These user flows show the process in which digital and physical tickets are sold between a seller and buyer.

The process is broken down into 3 steps: seller setting price, ticket verification, and payment.

I made sure that the transaction can be manually cancelled at every point of the process. It also cancels automatically if a ticket is deemed invalid to protect the buyer.

Digital tickets are verified by the seller uploading the ticket file for authentication.

Physical tickets are authenticated by the buyer scanning them.

The initial planning sketches and wireframes in which I focused primarily on how sellers would connect with another individual seeking tickets and the differences between digital and physical ticket transactions.

User Feedback

I presented Authenticks to the individuals that I originally interviewed and here are some highlights of the feedback I received:

“I wish I had something like this to stop me from getting scammed last time.”

“I would definitely use this. The best part is that it saves me from getting scammed in the first place. It sucks dealing another person when I’m always kinda skeptical because there’s just no way to be sure.”

“I like the clean design and it looks easy enough to use with clear steps. Being able to see if a ticket is fake right away would be a game changer.”

“It’s great that you thought about how to secure buyers before and after they buy the ticket.”

“I think in the future maybe you could add some way to report people that try to sell fake tickets. Maybe some sort of reviews feature too?”

Challenges & Learnings

This is this the second case study in which I conceptualized an app that deals with 2 users acting simultaneously. Since I worked on Prism Camera before, I was more comfortable with this line of thinking this time around. Regardless, working within those parameters remained as being the prominent challenge due to having to account for the different ways one user’s input would affect the other and vice versa.

During the research phase, I learned about analyzing offerings from competitors. I discovered a great deal about the gaps in how those competitors in the ticket resale space handle fraudulent tickets. When I realized the protections in place were reactionary or non-existent, I knew that there was opportunity for me to build upon them and address common pain points.