

SeatGeek Launches iPhone App - arlog
http://seatgeek.com/mobile

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xoail
Very well designed indeed. Since so many people are raving about the design,
is it really that important to launch an app with very good design or is that
something you can iterate on? I am always interested to see the comparison on
app performance (in terms of downloads, on-boarding and retaining users) when
launched with super slick design and mediocre design which becomes better with
each iteration. If anyone have anything to share please help me out! From my
experience I see people tend to talk more about apps that are rich in design
and tend to use them often too. And obviously design is one huge element that
slows down shipping. I also hear people talk about getting the MVP right (with
design and all) but hardly see any app that only does MVP. The apps that I and
my friends use are quite complete and still tend to add more features with
every update. I find this whole idea confusing where people talk about
something (MVP, sticking to one thing, etc.) but I see something else (Very
polished design, does a couple of things integrated together, other bells and
whistles) winning in the market.

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biot
Something which is functional but lacking polish trumps something that is
extremely polished but doesn't do much.

Putting it another way, which Minimum Viable Date would you choose?

    
    
      1. Cute and sociable. Smells nice, good conversationalist.
         Date involves picking up two packages of cup-a-soup from
         7-11 and sitting on the curb outside.
    
      2. Heroin addicted, hasn't showered in a week. Withdrawn
         from conversation. Date involves dinner and wine at a Michelin-
         starred restaurant followed by a limo picking you up and taking
         you to a sold-out concert where you're in the front row and you
         have backstage passes after.
    

Make sure you understand which is the feature and which is the polish. The
feature in the above two examples is the _person_. That's what the date is
really about. The polish is where you go and what you do with the person.

This is what Apple got wrong with their maps app. Its appearance is what you'd
expect from Apple. It's really polished and likely went through their rigorous
pixel-perfect prototyping [0]. But the underlying feature that people expect
is accurate mapping. Having a map which is never wrong but looks like an Etch-
a-Sketch would be preferable to a highly polished map which gets you stranded
in the Australian Outback.

That said, you want to find the right balance. If you're providing the app to
existing customers, they're probably looking for the functionality and can
deal with a lack of polish. If you're using the app as a marketing tool to
attract customers, be sure to make it look good but they may not sign up if
the functionality isn't there.

[0] [http://intenseminimalism.com/2011/apple-design-myths-a-
summa...](http://intenseminimalism.com/2011/apple-design-myths-a-summary/)

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james33
I don't get why SeatGeek hasn't gained more traction over the years. I've
never found a ticket service that is so useful with such great UI/UX. Not to
mention their seating charts blow everything else out of the water.

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bargainhunter
I'm curious...why the decision not to support login?

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zackkitzmiller
We decided to just focus on the search and map experience and nail it, rather
than add a whole lot of features at a lesser quality.

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Coax
Just tried it. Top notch. Head and shoulders above the Ticketmaster app, which
I use quite frequently. (Or at least I used to.)

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bigdubs
Nice work guys! App looks great, will be an awesome tool for future ticket
purchases.

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ErikAugust
Design done right. Also, very useful for fans like myself.

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hnriot
It's a shame that a search for seatgeek on the iPhone results in the usual no
listings. Maybe in a day or two it will work, but I really hope Apple get
their search indexing latency sorted out soon.

~~~
bkanber
Really? In the app store? I searched for and found it no problem. But I'm
still on iOS 5...

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rscale
Very nice. I just used it to buy some basketball tickets, and it was a very
smooth experience.

I'm not sure how or if to address this, but after ordering I got to a receipt
page, and the confirmation took a few minutes to arrive. I found myself
wishing I could save the confirmation page, in case I needed to refer back to
it.

That said, it was easy for me to find the game I was interested in, easy for
me to find tickets, and checking out went better than expected given that I
was on a mobile device. Thanks.

~~~
tnorthcutt
You could take a screenshot of the receipt page, if you are worried about
receiving the receipt via email or whatnot.

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rscale
I wound up taking two screenshots, one showing the top, one showing the
bottom. It kinda worked, but it was the only kludgy part of the experience.

