Role: UX designer, UX researcher
Tool: Adobe xd and plugins
Duration: 4 weeks
Music is known to be the ether of life and it doesn't discriminate. Every individual on this plant has their own way of connecting to music, some people just enjoy listening to music and some people enjoy playing music. Muse is a networking app for musicians which focuses on the struggles of musicians and is an effort to facilitate their musical lives.
I conducted the user research, ideated, developed paper and digital wireframes and clickable lo-fi and hi-fi prototypes to enhance the experience of users.
Muse website and app
Pain points of users
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Difficulty in connecting to music venues
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Collaborating with musicians is difficult
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Buying and selling instruments is tough
Goal
To make a networking app for musician where you can connect to venues, buy and sell instruments and gear and collaborate with musicians online.
Process
I started my research by delving into the market of apps for musicians and found out that the market was filled with inconsistencies. The rationale behind it was to see the gaps that my website and app could fill. After that I decided to interview people for creating user bios and converted them into user personas, and I realised that a lot of musicians were facing the problems that I was trying to solve. I am also a musician and that made me empathize with them on a personal level but I didn't let my biases affect my designs. After that creating user personas I made user journey maps that helped me to understand the problem better and put me in the shoes of my users. Then I conducted a competitive audit to research my competitors so that I could make my idea stand out. Then I started ideating and used methods like crazy eights and storyboarding to come up with solutions for user's problems.
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I wanted to make a responsive website and app this time so I made wireframes and prototypes for the both on Adobe xd. I also conducted a usability study with 7 participants after creating my lo-fi and hi-fi prototypes. Then I used an affinity diagram to synthesize root problems and potential solutions for the problems they faced during the usability study.
User Persona
After interviewing a few people, I made two user personas which helped me to know about the real pain points of people and helped me to empathize with them.
User journey map
The journey that Aron takes to locate and contact a venue.
Storyboard
Usability study
After creating my lo-fi prototypes I conducted a usability study with 7 participants to see their experience with my desktop and app. After testing, I conducted an interview with them to get some insights that could help me to improve my designs.
Affinity diagram
Usability insights
Wireframes and prototypes
Paper wireframes
I started with drawing wireframes on a piece of paper and here a few unpolished paper wireframes.
Wireframes for the app
Wireframes for the website
Digital wireframes
Final Designs
Takeaways
Impact: I created a website and app that would help musicians to locate and connect to venues, buy and sell their instruments and collaborate with other musicians online. It not only helps musicians but also helps venues by bringing musicians to them. Right now in the market there a lot of apps and websites for musicians but no one is helping to solve the problems that I am solving with my design.
What I learned: The project taught the importance of responsiveness of design and how paramount research is when working on a design, this design is directly the product of the suggestions of fellow musicians.