LYRA - a webapp for finding new, local music. 🎶️
OVERVIEW
SUMMARY: My client came to me with a concept for a streaming site that could help musicians with gaining exposure and income.
Our concept, Lyra, is based around the idea that you can find and stream local music right from your home. If you're a musician, you simply state where you’re based and upload your discography. Users can listen and donate to your tip jar. I utilized a trello board for sprint planning, conducted user surveys to highlight the demographic and demand, created personas, sketched and then created low-fidelity prototypes using figma. Finally I tested those with a target audience.
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: My role was as a UX researcher, UX and UI designer and eventually a product designer all within one project.
PROBLEM STATEMENT: Where can I find local music online?
SOLUTION: Create a product for both music lovers and musicians in a certain geographic area, geared at discovery and helping local scenes blossom.
AUDIENCE:
- 16-28 year olds (young creatives)
- Musicians looking for a community / audience
- Music lovers looking for a more organic way to find local community
DISCOVERY AND RESEARCH
I put out a Google questionnaire on the Thinkful slack for insight and analyzed the results. Here’s some data on users who took my survey (they took it if they indicated interest in local music)
Green = musician
Blue = male identifying
Grey = female identifying
Blue = male identifying
Grey = female identifying
I asked users many questions, but this one is definitely worth highlighting considering the majority of the quiz takers are listeners, not musicians.
Some questions I asked for written feedback on were:
- What is a feature you love on a music streaming site?
- Do you feel strongly about supporting artists directly?
- Is your local music community important to you?
This feedback helped me solidify the premise that there is demand for another streaming site that highlights FINDING music to listen to.
USER PERSONAS
Jenni James is 21 and lives in Portland, Oregon where she goes to Graphic Design school. She's passionate about listening to local artists and is obsessed with going to see them live (post COVID). She knows that many streaming sites do not give artists enough income to make a livelihood, so she tries to buy albums directly from the artists.
DRIVE
• Loves her hometown and wants to actively be involved in its art scene
• When she visits friends in other towns, she's curious about their local art scene
• She wants her musician friends to feel seen, supported and motivated
• Loves the social aspect of local music
• Loves her hometown and wants to actively be involved in its art scene
• When she visits friends in other towns, she's curious about their local art scene
• She wants her musician friends to feel seen, supported and motivated
• Loves the social aspect of local music
GOALS AND NEEDS
• Wants songs on spotify before the show
• Wants favorite local bands to be recognized and appreciated
• Doesn’t want to be overloaded with notifications when not needed
• Wants songs on spotify before the show
• Wants favorite local bands to be recognized and appreciated
• Doesn’t want to be overloaded with notifications when not needed
PAIN POINTS AND HESITATIONS
• Questions companies values
• has an older computer and wants to be able to acess site regardless
• Doesn’t want to mislead the bands she knows into joining a bad site
• Only has so much time to check out music
• Wants site to be relevant to all local musicians
• Questions companies values
• has an older computer and wants to be able to acess site regardless
• Doesn’t want to mislead the bands she knows into joining a bad site
• Only has so much time to check out music
• Wants site to be relevant to all local musicians
I then sent Jenni on a User Journey to see how she would navigate being a member of our site.
I created a second persona to emulate the other half of our users, independent musicians.
Ron Gonzoles is 26 and lives in Santa Cruz, California where he’s a full time folk musician and music teacher. He would love to quit his teaching job and pursue his folk career full-time, but cannot currently because of lack of income via streams and merchandise purchases. He has posted on every platform possible, and has aquired followers from all over the globe. But, Ron unfortunately has not cultivated fans in the Santa Cruz area besides his friends and family. He would love to be able to have local fans and connections so that he could be in local festivals and help inspire other folk musicians in the area.
DRIVE
• Will put in extra work to get his music out there
• Loves where he lives and does not want to relocate
• Local fans would motivate him to pursue more live opportunities
• Will put in extra work to get his music out there
• Loves where he lives and does not want to relocate
• Local fans would motivate him to pursue more live opportunities
GOALS AND NEEDS
• Wants to make more income from his music
• Doesn’t want to pay for a manager because he is self made
• Constantly improves himself and environment
• Would love to be recognized in his local scene
• Needs to have local interest to stay local to Santa Cruz
• Wants to make more income from his music
• Doesn’t want to pay for a manager because he is self made
• Constantly improves himself and environment
• Would love to be recognized in his local scene
• Needs to have local interest to stay local to Santa Cruz
PAIN POINTS AND HESITATIONS
• Not many ways to get music out there locally in covid
• Sick of busking and playing to the wrong audience at local gigs
• Afraid of wasting his time and effort on Lyra
• Afraid of rejection / lack of interest from fans
• Isn’t great at setting up personal websites and pages
• Not many ways to get music out there locally in covid
• Sick of busking and playing to the wrong audience at local gigs
• Afraid of wasting his time and effort on Lyra
• Afraid of rejection / lack of interest from fans
• Isn’t great at setting up personal websites and pages
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
I compared Lyra directly to very large streaming platforms like Spotify and Bandcamp.
Bandcamp:
- STRENGTHS: customizable, independent nature, advocates for the musician
- WEAKNESSES: not dynamic, modern, or eye-catching, no web player
- OPPORTUNITIES: make my artist page similar in culture
Bandcamp has a solid foundation for giving independent artists a place to sell their music in a pretty fair way. They do take a cut, but they also give artists a lot of customizability. The artist’s page layout is very customizable to fit whatever realm they fall into, which is something I want to implement for Lyra.
Spotify:
- STRENGTHS: web-player, incredibly user friendly and clear
- WEAKNESSES: depends heavily on AI to complete music discovery, fleeces artists, doesn’t allow uploading to Spotify without paying a third party
- OPPORTUNITIES: Learn from their accessibility and easy to understand interface
Spotify is an incredibly popular site, so studying it’s components is very important for improving usability on Lyra. I especially checked out their web player layout to see how millions of people enjoy streaming on there, and it’s intuitive and simple so that is something I want to have be apart of my site as well. Overall, I think our site could be more creative and artistic in it’s style and layout than Spotify, as long it remains intuitive.
Jenni wants to use a site to find local music, stream it conveniently, and leave a tip of a size that’s affordable for her.
High priorities include: making the site’s purpose clear, simplifying both finding new artists locally for listeners, and onboarding for musicians.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
USER FLOWS
I came up with some ideal user flows for a first time user of the site. Heres an example.
WIREFRAME SKETCH ITERATIONS
I mocked up some early ideas of what I would want users to experience via a storyboard, what the content and flow would need to feature via Crazy 8s exercise, and early ideas of the layout of the site.
WIREFRAMES
I made MVP screens for two types of users: listeners and musicians
CLOSE UPS OF KEY FEATURES
ITERATIONS OF VISUAL DESIGN
While getting into the early stages of visual design, I wanted to incorporate a color palette I envisioned for my design. While inserting this burnt orange into my footer, I realized I should check it for accessibility.
Orange can have issues with visibility for impaired users. For contrast, here were my results:
Because it failed AAA, I chose to omit this color from my project.
USER TESTING
Margherita is a 25 year old female. The low-fidelity prototypes were tested by her over zoom and here is some feedback I gathered:
I tested the following user flow:
Login -> Location notification -> location page -> click high fidelity image -> about us artist page
…AND IT WENT OVER SWIMMINGLY!
⅚ pages reached by our tester.
In the pre and post questions, some highlights of what Margherita said:
“I like the concept of the site.”
“I wish it had a local event aspect to it.”
“What if the tip jar looked like a tip jar?”
Based on this feedback, I was able to gather that my overall MVP concept was working and could be what my client was looking for. I need to redesign some important components of the site so they can be attractive and functional. I need to add a way for people to find local events of the local artists in their area, similar to Facebook or Craigslist events.
The users followed a user flow and proved the website to be easy to use and follow.
PROTOTYPE
Click here to experience the wireframe prototype yourself.
FINAL THOUGHTS/TAKEAWAYS
Lyra was a great opportunity to get a sense of working for someone, using my expertise to help them with their vision and business. I was able to take a general concept, test to see if there was a market for my client’s idea, compare to other apps in the music space, and create a product that would solve the problem statement: Where do we find local music online? There is a ton of room for designing new interactions and pages utilizing the design process. One notable area is musician-centered research and testing. I am also excited to transition my MVP into high fidelity to solidify the aesthetic and style.
Design Case Studies - Highlights
I have focused on three specialties; Product Transformation, User Research, and Data Visualization. The journeys there can be found below:
