Houston
Symphony
Project Overview.
Houston Symphony is one of America’s oldest and most celebrated orchestras, serving nearly 400,000 people annually through concerts, educational programs, and community engagement. The organization needed a mobile-first redesign to better reflect artistic excellence, deepen educational outreach, and increase community visibility.
Challenge: Users struggled to quickly discover upcoming concerts, understand educational and community initiatives, and buy tickets for preferred seating and packages.
My Role.
I led the end-to-end design of Fun Facts pages, Interactive Photo Frames, and Social Sharing tools, including stakeholder interviews, user research, information architecture, wireframing, high-fidelity design, and usability testing.
My responsibilities included
Synthesizing research and framing insights
Designing information architecture and page-level UX decisions
Creating high-fidelity designs for key features
Iterating based on usability testing feedback
Team & Tools: 4 UX Designers | 3 weeks | Figma, Miro, Google Analytics, Maze
Outcomes
60% increase in perceived relevance among users aged 18–35
40% faster task completion for key user flows
95% of users said they would use the app to explore events and content
User Research.
Key Insights
Users felt excluded by traditional classical formats
Desired social and expressive experiences
Expected a mobile-first, modern design
Valued cultural context and immersive experiences
Design Opportunity: Build a mobile-first app that is inclusive, interactive, and shareable, while maintaining the Symphony’s elegance and cultural credibility.
Persona & Problem.
Meet Jane: 24-year-old marketing specialist who enjoys immersive, shareable cultural experiences.
Problem Statement
Information Architecture.
Problem: Key content and interactive features were fragmented, making discovery and engagement difficult.
Design Decision: I designed a task-driven, centralized navigation structure with content grouped by user intent, embedding interactive tools and social features to encourage exploration.
Impact: Improved content discoverability, reduced friction, and made the Symphony’s value immediately clear to users.
Design Process
We kicked off with sketching early concepts focused on discovery, interactivity, and shareability. These ideas were refined collaboratively into a cohesive vision for the mobile app.
Next, we moved into wireframing, mapping key screens, navigation patterns, and interactive elements before applying visual styling.
I led the design of standout features:
Fun Facts pages for engaging, light content
Interactive photo frames for in-event participation
Social sharing tools for a connected, personal experience
Visual Design: Balanced elegance with approachability. A rich purple palette replaced the original yellow and gray to evoke creativity and emotion, paired with a clean sans-serif typeface for clarity and modern readability.
With wireframes and visual design finalized, we built a clickable prototype to test interactions, gather feedback, and refine the experience.
Usability Testing & Feedback.
We conducted eight usability tests (structured + unstructured). Users described the app as approachable, intuitive, and aligned with their digital habits.
Refinements included
Improved navigation flow and icon labels
Enhanced color contrast for accessibility
Highlighted interactive features like Fun Facts and social sharing
Post-test results
60% increase in perceived relevance among users aged 18–35
40% faster task completion for key user flows
95% of users said they would use the app to explore events and content
The Symphony team noted that the research uncovered insights they wished had been asked years earlier, emphasizing the impact and strategic value of our work.
Reflection
Designing for social connection and immersive experiences successfully engaged younger audiences
Balancing elegance with modern interaction design preserved the Symphony’s cultural identity
Future opportunities: personalize content discovery and test long-term engagement