Overview

Empowering Vietnamese event fans with offline access, secure check-ins, and seamless discovery in a cluttered market.

Role

UI/UX Design Intern

Team

Small team (3 developers, PM/founder + 3 UI/UX Interns)

Timeline

June 2025 - Present

(4 months)

Skills

Visual Design
UI & UX Design

UX Research

background & SCOPE

Modernizing Vietnam's ticketing: Designing the Flip mobile app

background & SCOPE

Modernizing Vietnam's ticketing: Designing the Flip mobile app

Flip.vn is an innovative ticketing platform in Vietnam, designed to modernize event ticketing for organizers and consumers by emphasizing automation, transparency, and event-specific tech.


Building on its existing web platform, this co-op project aimed to expand into a full native mobile app, starting with Phase 1: seamless check-ins and notifications, before evolving to comprehensive features like event discovery, ticket purchasing, and queueing.

The current Flip web platform

The project targeted urban event-goers (ages 18-35) and organizers hosting entertainment-focused events, with cultural fits like local payment integrations (e.g., VNPay, bank transfer).


Why important? In a market dominated by clunky platforms like Ticketbox, Flip positions itself as the modern alternative, reducing manual work for organizers and enhancing fairness for fans – ultimately boosting Vietnam's growing events industry.

What we already have & What can be done

  • Key challenges included the small team size, which necessitated a phased rollout, and a strict 4-week timeline for Phase 1, creating tight deadlines for deliverables.

  • We inherited the project from an existing web platform, meaning we worked off established design systems and visual styles while adapting them to native mobile for a natural feel.

  • Quick user research was conducted separately for each phase, with heavy reliance on competitor analysis to inform decisions amid constraints like cultural preferences for information-dense UIs.

goals

Flip wants a native mobile solution that is

goals

Flip wants a native mobile solution that is

Phase 1

Timeline: ~4 Weeks

Seamless check-ins & Notifications

Seamless check-ins & Notifications

The problem

Vietnam’s event-goers deserve better

The problem

Vietnam’s event-goers deserve better

Vietnam's vibrant event scene, from concerts to festivals, is hindered by outdated ticketing technology that fails event-goers:

Research & Insights

Balancing competitor analysis with cultural contexts

Research & Insights

Balancing competitor analysis with cultural contexts

Similar to other Asian countries, Vietnamese users have a preference for information-rich apps. However, this highlights risks of clutter leading to poor UX.


Flip's main competitor, Ticketbox, has messy UI that distracts users, while often feels outdated and inconsiderate.

Ticketbox's busy Ticket Details – Check In flow

Design Process

Design for users & design for comfort

Design Process

Design for users & design for comfort

Due to the short timeline, the requirement for the first iteration was a hi-fi prototype in Figma. Drawing from competitor insights to prioritize touch-friendly elements for Vietnam's mobile users, I designed the first prototype and went through a few iterations according to user feedback.

Screen

My Tickets - Empty state

Uniform branding

Use illustrations that are expressive and match with Flip's branding.

Visual hierarchy is key

Refrain from using primary color for elements that don't require visual focus.

User context > Aesthetics

Add subtext for menu items to inform user on menu bar content.

(Slide for Before <-> After)

Screen

My Tickets - Event Details

Before

  • Small & ununiformed buttons.

  • Unclear organizer instructions.

  • Spacing & font weight.

After

  • More space for event image.

  • Clearer organizer instructions & updates.

  • Lengthy sections are shortened & expandable, reducing scroll length.

Phase 2

Timeline: ongoing

Full native mobile app

The problem

Fans struggle to discover and secure tickets in a cluttered market

The problem

Fans struggle to discover and secure tickets in a cluttered market

Users face messy platforms like Ticketbox, overwhelmed by irrelevant events (e.g., workshops mixed with concerts), lacking detailed descriptions for themed, multi-artist Vietnamese shows. Purchasing involves slow checkouts without local integrations, and queueing for high-demand events feels unfair without transparent systems. This matters as Vietnam's smaller-scale events rely on effective marketing and access to thrive.

Research & Insights

Understanding the market & Flip's positioning

Research & Insights

Understanding the market & Flip's positioning

Before carrying on with the full mobile experience, the team carried out a thorough competitor analysis as well as a product deep dive to gain better insights into the market, locally and globally, and the product itself.

Competitor analysis

Product deep dive

Our findings

Focus on entertainment to streamline discovery

Our findings

Focus on entertainment to streamline discovery

Locally,

  • Ticketbox's messy UI, packed with irrrelevant events (workshops mixed with concerts), distracts users, often feeling outdated and inconsiderate.

  • CTicket compounds this by listing in-event merch as separate events, creating a disjointed feel.


Globally,

  • Ticketmaster excels in clean ticketing UX but skimps on event details, suiting US markets where single-artist events need little intro. In Vietnam, smaller-scale events with themes and multi-artists demand rich descriptions for marketing and context.

Design Process

Collaborate & Iterate

Design Process

Collaborate & Iterate

After thorough research on existing products and the problem space, we starting bringing together a consolidated flow for Phase 1, then iterated and expanded to a full native mobile flow.

final product

The Flip Native Mobile Experience

final product

The Flip Native Mobile Experience

The full native app extends to pre-event experiences, offering curated event discovery, fast purchasing, and fair queueing.


Features:

  • Entertainment-focused event feeds with filters to avoid Ticketbox-like clutter

  • Detailed event pages showcasing themes and multi-artist lineups (crucial for Vietnam’s smaller-scale events)

  • Transparent queueing systems inspired by TodayTix for high-demand events.


Unique to Flip: Unlike local competitors’ cluttered UIs or global apps’ sparse details, this solution caters to Vietnam’s event culture, enhancing accessibility and engagement.

Reflections & Next Steps

Moving fast & Looking back

Reflections & Next Steps

Moving fast & Looking back

Working on Flip’s mobile app deepened my understanding of designing for cultural and technical constraints in a startup environment.


Carrying out research under a 4-week Phase 1 crunch taught me to prioritize competitor and market insights, especially for Vietnam’s unique needs (e.g., network-unstable venues, info-dense preferences). Adapting the inherited web design system for mobile honed my skills in balancing consistency with innovation, while Phase 2 emphasized the importance of thorough planning and collaboration in prototyping a full-blown, detailed user flow.


If I had more time, I’d conduct deeper user research for Phase 2 and more user testing to validate Phase 1’s offline flows.


This project grew my agility in lean teams, empathy for Vietnam’s event-goers, and confidence in phased design – skills I’ll carry into future global UX challenges.