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 makes 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

Method 2: Foreign Correspondents

Request input from coworkers and contacts in other countries and conduct a cross cultural study to derive basic international design principles.

User 7: Greta Albertie, female, 20 yrs. old, very interested in gaming and fashion design, loves anime, k-pop and hard rock music. Huge fan of horror movies, from Michigan.

Greta is currently studying abroad studying computer science and games design in Japan

  • 13 hour time difference between Japan and the US. 

  • It is currently 2:26 p.m. here and 3:26 a.m. in Japan, so facetiming is nearly impossible

  • Our app will allow her to still communicate with family and friends without being present in a call

  • She was also a big fan of the world feature, as an avid traveler she loved the idea of being able to see what was trending in different parts of the world

  • As far as design principles one thing she said that was very popular was pop art and very recognizable shapes and figures

  • Another trend very popular in Japan is organic forms and simple shapes such as circles and rounded shapes

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 3: Flow Analysis

Represent the flow of information or activity through all phases of a system or process.

Method 4: 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, o 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.