The Smell Of The Greasepaint. The Roar Of The Crowd.

Toby Trachtman
4 min readDec 25, 2019
Audition App Case Study

TL;DR: Case study covering my design of a theater audition app. The main problem I faced, was designing the app to be accessible for a wide range of people as actors that don’t fit into a specific demographic. Deliverables include: persona’s, storyboards, user flows, and wire-frames.

Our Problem

As someone who has been involved in stagecraft as both an actor and director, one aspect which always bothered me was the audition process.

Some of the pain points of auditioning are:

  • Finding out about new auditions — without perusing endless websites and without the help of an agent
  • Scheduling the audition
  • Filling out audition forms on the spot and having to remember to print and bring head shots
  • Finding suitable productions which are the right fit for you

I decided to design an app which aims to centralize casting calls and allow for easy sign up without the need for paper forms. Because of the variety of intended users it was important for me to create a very intuitive and easy to use interface to allow ease of use across many age groups. I utilized a design thinking methodology in order to hone my UX design skills.

I am still in the process of designing this app to solve a problem, which has been bothering me for a while.

Beginning the UX phase

Personas

Based on my conversations, I developed 3 user personas, which I referred back to throughout the design process. Take persona #1 - “Michael.”

Michael 65, married. (children are grown), He is retired and loves to be on stage. Directors who have worked with him in the past tend to call him in for comedic roles. But he wants to break out of being type cast and would like to take acting back into his own hands. He would like to hear about the auditions ahead of time and branch out to more serious roles. His biggest worry about the app is that he isn’t tech savvy and is scared that it will be too confusing.

Story Boarding

At this point I decided to use some of my theater skills and story-boarded the user journey from the moment they decided they lacked something until the moment they got the part. Doing this helped me discover what features I would need to include in the app.

User flow

At this stage I used Adobe XD and sketched out a user flow to help solidify what features I needed to include.

I showed this to some actor friends and ended up adding number 4, based off of their feedback.

The solution needed to be a mobile app because actors are notorious for working in other professions (coffee anyone?) and always have access to their phones.

Wire frames

I moved on and started doing a mid fidelity layout to get a general idea of visual hierarchy.

UI Style and Prototype

I decided to go with a very simple UI inspired by Airbnb. Because my users are from a wide range of backgrounds and limitations (age, language, etc.), I wanted it to be as usable, intuitive, and uncluttered as possible.

Try out my interactive prototype and sign up for a Pirates of Penzance audition on the 11th at 19:30.

Moving forward, I plan to continue to add new features such as the ability to invite friends, upload video auditions, filter out who can audition for your show, take audition masterclasses, and much more. Throughout the design process, I continued to learn new things from live workshops and online tutorials and hope to continue refining both the design and my workflow.

If you enjoyed this case study and are looking for a designer who will bring fresh ideas, a human centered approach, and a unique perspective I invite you to reach out.

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Toby Trachtman

I am a UX Designer, director, team leader, and storyteller. currently looking for my next UX role. I invite you to reach out: Toby@trachtmandesigns.com