Overview

Role + Scope

For this class, our task was to create a novel social media app. This goal was challenging because after doing some casual market research, it seemed like everything has already been thought of and implemented. Until we looked into another way people connect: through music.

Role + Scope

Role: Creative Lead

Scope: 10 Weeks

Platform: iOS 14

Team: Nina Nguyen, Jimmy Wu, Andrea Dang, Benjamin Kim

The Problem

Music has a way of expressing what we can't in words. Yet, there are no social media apps designed for listener-to-listener music sharing.

The Results

The Problem

With the data and feedback we attained through our users, we created a high fidelity prototype that would best represent the intentions of our solution.

There are no popular music sharing apps

When ideating for our social media app, we looked to current social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc., and realized that there is no popular music sharing apps. We have platforms like Spotify and SoundCloud, but they're centered around streaming artists to listeners.

We want to keep people in the moment

Another aspect of our app that we wanted to be different with was how the app would retain the users' attention. We want to keep people in the moment; that's why the main feature of our app is geolocation. The goal is to have the user drop and share a song of whatever they're feeling in that moment, wherever they are.

Each song dropped is like a little note from another user or a little glimpse into someones day

This app would benefit people who travel often or who want to know they're local community in a new light. The nature of this app would be asynchronous, as a song would stay in it's location until replaced. This facilitates more opportunity for connection because each song dropped is like a little note from another user or a little glimpse into someones day.

Age Range

Do you like exploring new music?

How often do you travel?

Would you be interested in hearing recommended music from people locally when you travel?

Do you share your music and/or playlist with your friends?

When you hear a song you like, do you send it to your friend or someone you think would like it?

Interviewer: "What do you think about sharing music in your area? Not necessarily finding new music from local artists, but sharing already existing music to people in your vicinity."

Interviewer: "What do you think about a platform like SoundCache? Would you use a social app that resolves around music sharing via geolocation?"

Mapping out the overall structure of user flow for clear usability.

We needed to prevent the confusion from our unstructured idea on Discord and create a clear and concise interface.

To achieve this, I created a user flow map. Once we had the overall structure of the app mapped out, we created a low fidelity mock-up.

Creation of a wire frame for our envisioned app.

Taking the feedback received from our first prototype, I created a wire frame of our envisioned app on Figma. This helped to narrow down exactly what features I wanted to incorporate.

The first screen the user sees once logged into the app is the 'Songs Near You' page which will be a timeline of songs posted in their current location. I decided on this page being the first instead of the 'Home' page to emphasize the geolocation feature of our app.

I thought to give the user an option to see the songs posted in a bird's-eye-view perspective. Ultimately, I decided not to add a map option to our high fidelity because it did not add any more social value.

When posting a song the user will not only share the song on their mind, but also how they're feeling and why they're posting their chosen song.

The users' profiles will show their following and follower lists, a user bio, and their posted songs.

Previous Challenges

Technical difficulties: Users had trouble getting the bot to play a song of their choosing on Discord
Lack of focus for user interactions

What we changed

We used Gathertown to simulate SoundCache
We included more social interactions: conversations, dropping physical songs, and having users move around in Gathertown
We added a demo video to communicate the value of our platform and how users would be performing their tasks

A more interactive approach that allowed users to experience how SoundCache would work in real life.

Discord did not accurately represent our visions and goals for SoundCache so we decided to use the platform Gathertown instead.

Gathertown is a video chat platform designed to make virtual interactions more human, and provides a digital space in the form of a role-playing game and helps distributed teams come together.

This platform portrayed the users' experience with SoundCache because users were afforded to move around and physically drop songs.

Overall, this prototype was more interactive and allowed users to experience how SoundCache could work in real life and additionally, had more social interactions.

Feedback from users

"It was a great improvement & very clear"

"I don't know how last week's prototype was but I liked Gathertown once it started working. It was pretty easy to drop a song and move around to see which songs other people dropped."

"The only difficulty was the capacity of gathertown but otherwise it went very smoothly and intuitively."

Picking up on a Song

The users of SounCache will receive a notification when another user drops a song that is near their location. By pressing on the notification bar, it will navigate the user to the "Songs Near You" page where the song and the person who dropped the song will be visible on the feed. The user then can listen to the music if interested.

"Songs Near You"

The user can interact with the newly dropped song by commenting on the poster's prompt or reacting to the song through custom emojis. Here, the users have access to any dropped songs by any user who are nearby by scrolling the interface, which is the main feed of the app. Users who dropped songs are identifiable and accessible.

Dropping Like It's Hot

When deciding to "drop" at the user's current location, they create a post which includes: the song of choice, the mood, why was the song chosen, and a question for the next listener at their exact location.

Creating a post would allow users to see the chronological history of others which addresses one of the challenges from the previous prototype. Having a question as a post requirement also enforces social interaction between the users.

Social Engagement

When users drop or pick up a song, users can see who it is that did it and interact with them. Users can direct message the other users to share their music tastes and make new friends. Similarly to Spotify, they can continue to share music with each other or just go about their day. SoundCache is meant for you to share and discover music spontaneously.

What I learned

People are likely to use a social media app based around music sharing

With data gathered from our initial survey, we realized a lot of people would use a social app dedicated towards music sharing. There are many people who love music and love traveling that are very enthusiastic about the potential of a platform like ours.

Mapping out the user flow creates more clarity for user experience

From the experience we had with our first prototype, we needed to make sure we got the user flow right the next time. Because there's no music-sharing app on the market, creating a user flow is not so straightforward. We took the time to map out what exactly users can do with SoundCache and what the goal of it was. After we organized a user flow diagram, it was made the user interface designing process a lot smoother.

What we would do if we had more time:

Add a feature where users can collect badges; users can collect badges the more they interacted with others or dropped/picked up songs at various locations - incentive
Incorporate more user testing to obtain better user stats and research
Spend more time on the high-fidelity prototypes to better represent our visions and goals
GPS system for the user to directly see visually which locations are the songs being dropped at

See Interactive Figma Prototype

Overview

Role + Scope

Role + Scope

Role + Scope

Role + Scope

Role + Scope

The Problem

The Problem

The Problem

The Results

The Problem

The Problem

Ideation Process

There are no popular music sharing apps

We want to keep people in the moment

Each song dropped is like a little note from another user or a little glimpse into someones day

The Research

We used two research methods: survey questions and interview questions.

Prototyping With Discord

user flow + lo-fi prototype

Mapping out the overall structure of user flow for clear usability.

Creation of a wire frame for our envisioned app.

Prototyping With Gathertown

Previous Challenges

What we changed

A more interactive approach that allowed users to experience how SoundCache would work in real life.

Feedback from users

Hi-fi Prototype

Picking up on a Song

"Songs Near You"

Dropping Like It's Hot

Social Engagement

What I learned

People are likely to use a social media app based around music sharing

Mapping out the user flow creates more clarity for user experience

What we would do if we had more time:

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