SoundSurge is a music-sharing app designed to share your favorite artists, songs, and playlists with friends as well as see what others are listening to, and what's trending around the world. Our unique features such as direct messaging friends, and the ability to create joint playlists allow you to stay connected with your friends through music no matter where you are geographically located. Your days of listening to the same music over and over are simply over. SoundSurge not only allows you to stay up to date with what’s trending in the world, but our advanced technology is made to tailor your discovery page to your exact likings based on who you follow and the songs you like so you'll never have to search for something to listen to again! It's time to stop scrolling and start surging!
PROCESS
Target Users:
Age range is roughly anyone from 13-40 years old.
Individuals who share a love for music and are looking for a way to share and expand their music taste with family and friends as well as people around the world.
People on a budget
Musical artists to share their music and send to fans
Helpful in bridging the gap between Apple music and Spotify users
STEP 1: DEFINING USERS
STEP 2: PERSONA/JOURNEY MAP/STORYBOARD
STEP 3: USER RESEARCH
Method 1: Card Sort
On separate cards, name separate features, functions, or design attributes. Ask potential users to organize the cards spatially in ways that make sense to them.
USER 1: Erin Burke, 20, female, college, not super super into music but seems interested in an app that would let her discover new music, from michigan
Group 1 - Put all 3 together on front page (like tiktok)
Trending Page
Discovery Page
Following Page
Group 2 - Top of Home page (buttons)
Messages
Search
Group 3 - Profile
Profile
Mutuals
Friends List
Like Page
QR code
Group 4 - Settings (its own thing)
USER 2: Dominic Yee, 21, college, into music and very interested in feature for music sharing, from michigan
Group 1 - Top of Home Page (buttons)
Settings
Search
Group 2 - Profile
Mutuals
Friends List
QR Code
Like Page
Group 3 - Home Page
Trending Page
Following Page
Discover Page
Messages
USER 3: Kristen Gresla, female, 20 years old, College, into music likes the idea of seeing what others are listening to in order to find new music, from Boston.
Group 1 -
QR Code
Group 2 -
Profile
Group 3 -
Following Page
Mutuals
Like Page
Friends List
Trending Page
Search
Discover Page
Group 4 -
Settings
USER 4: Shannon Schoch, female, 19 years old, not in college, enjoys music a lot but isn't like crazy into it, from Michigan.
Group 1 -
QR Code
Friends List
Settings
Profile
Group 2 -
Discover page
Search
Group 3 -
Trending
Group 4 -
Messages
Following Page
Group 5 -
Mutuals
Like Page
USER 5: J Martin, female, 20, not super into music but is interested in seeing what other people are listening to, lived in like 10 different states.
Group 1 -
Profile
Like Page
QR Code
Settings
Group 2 -
Messages
Mutuals
Friends List
Group 3 -
Search
Discover page
Following Page
Trending Page
USER 6: Isabel Reid, female 20, Interested in music, big intro dancing, interested in sharing music with friends, From Boston.
Group 1 -
Messages
Friends List
Following Page
Group 2 -
Search
Trending Page
Discover Page
Group 3 -
Settings
Group 4 -
QR Code
Profile
Like Page
User 8 - Dara Amin, 21, male, really really big into music, is a DJ, From San Franciso, CA
Recently came back from studying graphic design abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Simple design is key in Denmark, everything from websites and apps to furniture is always minimalistic and simple
They usually go for a more sleek modern design
Danish design has a major history in functional design, simplifying the design to help perform the functions necessary
Similarly to conversion with Greta, there is a big time difference so being able to use an app like this where users can send music at anytime of the day and the users receiving it can open and listen to the sent music whenever they want to
Method 2: Flow Analysis
Represent the flow of information or activity through all phases of a system or process.
Method 3: Personal Inventory/Shadowing
Document the things that people identify as important to them as a way of cataloging evidence of their lifestyles. Ask about what they do in their day-to-day lives
User 9: Nick Pippen, male, 22 years old, loves alternative music and rap, very good at graphic design, from California.
Day in the life of Nick:
7:30-8:30 a.m. Nick listens to music as he's getting ready for the day and walking to class
9:30-10 a.m listens to music when working on an in class assignment
10:30-12:30 p.m. listens to music as he is studying at the library
1:45-2 p.m. listens to music while walking to his next class
4:30-5:00 p.m listens to music while studying and on his walk home
8:00-10:00 p.m. listens to music while studying in room
11:30-12 a.m. listens to music in shower and as he is getting ready for bed.
How our app could have come in handy:
Nick is a fairly social guy and is most likely walking to class with a pal, so he might want to share a song or playlist with one of his classmates.
Nick lives with 4 roommates so maybe when they hear his music in the morning or at night when he's getting ready for bed they’ll want to know what he's listening to.
All of Nick’s family still lives in California so maybe he wants to send them new music or vice versa.
User 10 - Oliver Shapton, 20, Male, likes music a lot, interested in discovering new music, from Michigan
9:30 am, leaves for class, listens to music in airpods on the way
11 am, leaves class to go home, listens to music on the way
12-1pm, listens to music while he works out
1pm, listens to music when he showers
2pm, leaves for class listens to music on the way
4pm, leaves class, listens to music on the way
4:30-6:30pm, listens to music or watches tv while doing homework
How our app could have come in handy:
Any of the times he's walking, a good time to discover and listen to some new music
Oliver found a good radio show called Boiler Room and wanted to send it to his close friends
Wants to send his friend a good song because he thinks she would like it
STEP 4: IDEATION, SKETCH, AND PROTOTYPE
PROTOTYPING
REFINED USER FLOW
USER TESTING
Design the standard set of task lists or goals you want your user to do.
For example, you may ask the user to find their parent's contact information
and chat. (the tasks or goals should reflect the user's needs)
- Find the top trending song and artist globally
- Find the section where you can see who liked your playlists
- Find an artist’s profile that is similar to another artist
● Get basic user information: job, age, App usage, and gender.
- User 1: Student, 20, female, uses Spotify a lot
- User 2: Student, 20, male, apple music user
- User 3: DJ and Student, 22, male, on Spotify all the time finding new music
- User 4: Student, 21, female, apple music user/makes a lot of playlists
Summary
Our main revision after critique and peer review was changing our font size and layout specifically on the home page. We noticed that we were trying to cram too much information on the page, and therefore made our font size extra small to make sure everything would fit. To fix the problem we increased our font size and spread each section out more so that there were only 2 sections per page. In addition, from our critique we learned how to make each page scroll and how to make our simple squares more visually appealing. The main design principle we focused on using was contrast. Our two primary colors are blue and purple so we want to implement the colors in our buttons to better differentiate different interfaces and actions. We also implemented hierarchy, making sure to make the most important heading the largest on each page and the least important features smaller. From critique we also realized the importance of repetition. For example, some of our buttons used different font sizes, colors and shapes. At first we did not realize the importance of this small detail, however since realizing its importance we will make use of this principle in our final prototype to create
a more cohesive and clean looking app.