Couldn’t find event details
Basic event info was buried in the navigation. Users had to hunt for what should have been obvious.
2023 · Mobile · Research led
Building enough trust to book a $1,500 gig
Slove connects musicians with venues to book live gigs. Real money changes hands, often over a thousand dollars a booking.
The original flow was one vague step: pay now, sort out the details later. Nothing about equipment, timing, or who was responsible for what. People reached the payment screen and backed out, because committing that much on that little felt like a gamble.
60% → 100%Task success (12 of 12, final usability round)
+15%Conversion rate
-18%Abandonment rate
+25%User confidence
My role
Solo product designer. Owned the full cycle from discovery calls and card sorting through to IA, prototyping, usability testing, and delivery. Shipped in 3 months.
- Solo designer
- User research
- Information architecture
- Usability testing
- Visual design
What the research surfaced
Hesitated to pay
Without upfront equipment needs, timing, or responsibilities, paying felt like a leap of faith.
Transparency > speed
Users consistently preferred a longer, clearer process over a quick one-click payment.
The insight
I expected the fix to be fewer steps. The research pushed me the other way: users wanted more to go on before committing.
Every interview landed on the same thing: people would happily spend longer if it meant understanding what they were agreeing to. So I designed for clarity, even where that meant adding steps.
The redesign went out in 3 rounds, each one testing a specific fix with users before I moved to the next.
Round 1: swipe to scroll navigation
Swiping felt too much like a dating app. Scroll and dark mode gave a more professional feel.
swipe · scroll
Round 2: “likelihood” became “match %”
Made cards fully clickable, cut the info density, and rewrote confusing booking-probability copy.
before · after
Round 3: credibility signals on profiles
Venue profiles felt unreliable, so I added proof of played gigs, upcoming events, and social links.
no proof · now feels legit
No reviews · No history · No socials
adding proof
4.8(243)
0gigs played
3upcoming
Socials
feels unreliable
A deliberate trade-off
Booking time went up. Everything else went up too.
The new flow takes almost twice as long. But task success, confidence, and conversion all improved because users finally understood what they were agreeing to before hitting “pay.”
60% → 100%Task success rate
+15% conversion rate · -18% abandonment rate · +25% user confidence. Task success measured in moderated tests with 12 users. Confidence self-reported in a survey shown right after the flow.
Reflection
Adding steps is what built the trust. People needed to understand what they were agreeing to before they’d pay, and a one-tap checkout never gave them that.
This was the project that taught me to trust the research over the obvious answer. If you’re designing for trust in a high-stakes flow, payments, bookings, anywhere people hesitate before committing, I’d love to compare notes.
natalia.wlwsk@gmail.com →