ROLE: UI DESIGN LEAD AND PROJECT MANAGER | 2016
Soundseekr
Making local music discovery easy.
Soundseekr is an award winning app designed to enable music industry professionals and music enthusiasts to discover local artists and help local artists get discovered. The app utilizes geo-location technologies to load in local artists from the area that it believes the user will like based on listening habits and allows the user to either save the artist or skip to the next one. Soundseekr wants to increase the community awareness. This app was designed in Interaction Design at University of Texas at Dallas where it won second place from a panel of industry judges from Tekzenit, Active Network, and the Arts and Technology Center.
The Problem
With the rising of music streaming platforms, smaller artists have been harder and harder to discover. The library of music keeps getting bigger and even with platforms such as Soundcloud, bigger artists drown out the charts for smaller artists. We found there is not a platform that allows you to discover the artists that are in your area.
The Solution
Create Soundseekr, a music streaming application centered around discovering music in the users area. The application will fine tune their music preferences through their listening patters on other platforms and curate local artists that the app believes the user would listen to.
Process
Identifying the User
To identify our user base and audience we conducted interviews of both listeners and creators of music. We found that some people had unconventional ways of discovering music such as listening to radio stations outside of their city. Through these interviews we created 2 main personas the app would be designed around.
The Explorer: Emily
Bio: 17 – 24 years old. Student / Part Time worker
Overview: Emily is a music lover who is open to new types of genres. She doesn’t necessary go out of her way to find new songs, and often relies on apps such as Pandora, or popular radio stations to discover new tracks.
Goals: To stay up to date with the newest music and artists.
The Musician: Mike
Bio: 18 – 24 years old. Persuer of musical interests.
Overview: Mike is an individual that is passionate about music, and knows the specific genre he likes. Whether he may be trying to get his material out there, or searching for music for his own personal gain, he is always looking to discover new artists and bands. Has a strong sense of community, and believes music should be spread.
Goals: To find new music and share it with the community.
With these personas in mind, we developed 2 main users for Soundseekr.
The Artist
Soundseekr will allow artists to create an account and upload their music to the app. They will be able to sync their account to SoundCloud, Spotify, or iTunes, and choose the section of their song that the listener to preview. They can also upload their upcoming events to the calendar, and create an about page with more information about the artist.
The Listener
The listener will be able to create a profile and personalize their musical preferances on the app. SoundSeekr can automatically sync to the user’s Facebook account, scan their musical libraries, or have the user set their preferences manually. Song samples will play and the user can either swipe left to save the artist, or right to move on to the next song. Once an artist is saved, the listener will be
notified about upcoming events and new music.
Lo-fi Prototype
We started creating a lo-fi prototype of Soundseekr application screens as well as the site map. The Lo-Fi screens were then imported into POP (Prototyping on Paper) creating a working lo-fi prototype for user testing.
Creating a UI Kit and Development
Using Sketch, I developed a UI kit that reflected the look and feel I believe Soundseekr should have. It emulated the young audience it was intended for and focused on making the content about the artists.
A working prototype and demo was then created using Axure.
View Prototype