Background

Raytown Productions is an online music production service that assists musicians with mixing, mastering, and production of original music. They aim to break down potential barriers between musicians and music production by creating a mobile application that incorporates community engagement and audio mixing tools.

 

Task

Create a unique, innovative mobile application that provides Raytown’s potential users with features that are useful and relevant to music production.

Role & Scope

This was a rapid prototyping project done individually.

This project was a 2 week sprint.

 

Deliverables

  • 8 User Interviews

  • Storyboard

  • Sketches

  • Wireframes

  • Paper Prototypes

  • Lo-Fi Clickable Prototype (Balsamiq)

Methods

  • User Interviews

  • Affinity Mapping

  • Storyboarding

  • Wireframing

  • Usability Testing
    & Iterations

 

Problem

How might we help musicians gain access to the network they need to inspire creativity?

Solution

Create a space for all musicians to connect with other musicians to facilitate inspiration and creation of new music. Enter mixd — a mobile application for music collaboration.

 
 
 

The Process

 

User Interviews

My first step was finding out more about potential users. I started with primary research, conducting user interviews with young professionals who were self-proclaimed music lovers.

One-on-One Interviews: 8 people

“If artists could somehow find a way to put their work out there and be able to mix them in with other beats, it would be a lot easier to create music.”
— Young Musician
 
 

Affinity Mapping

To make sense of my user interviews, I started synthesizing insights with affinity mapping. This allowed me to identify the major themes in my data.

Insights Gained

  1. Across the board, users feel there is a “barrier” to music production

  2. Users love the ability to discover new artists and music but often find it challenging

  3. Social integration and collaboration are extremely valuable to musicians and the creation of new music

Representation of the three themes identified by affinity mapping: barriers to music production, collaboration, and discovery

 
 

Storyboarding

Creating a storyboard helped to visualize how the user would interact with the mixd app and communicate user motivations and behaviors.

Meet Jesse, a 30-year-old male who recently relocated hundreds of miles away from his musician friends. He had no clue know where to find other musicians to make music with until he found mixd.

 
 

Sketching & Wireframes

After identifying the key feature as “match me,” in which the app would generate a list of potential collaborators based on detailed user input, I was ready to start sketching, creating wireframes, and paper prototypes. 

 
 

Feedback & Iterations

Here is some feedback I received:

  • Buttons + Text= too small → made everything larger, easier to read, and click!

  • Information overload → refocused designs, omitted unnecessary/extra items

  • Some inconsistencies with screen layouts → adhered to one overall format moving forward

User Testing

Through several rounds of user testing and feedback, I was able to iterate to improve the functionality and overall design of the app.

 
 

Clickable Prototype

After a few rounds of user feedback and iterations, I was ready to move to Balsamiq to create a clickable prototype. Check out a video of the prototype below!