Helping musicians stay motivated and on-task when planning their next release or concert.
Role: UX Researcher and UI Designer
Project Type: End-to-end responsive website, branding
Industry: Music, Education
Tools: Figma, Zoom, Descript, Illustrator, Whimsical
The Research:
We started with the hypothesis that independent musicians struggle with planning and executing a release and shows. Personal experience and conversations with peers validated this hypothesis.
Musicians are typically brilliant at making art.
But business, planning, and release strategy? Not necessarily.
Competitor Analysis
We completed detailed competitor analysis and user interviews to determine what tools might be most helpful for independent musicians.
What we found:
Several tools already do exist in this space. BUT:
Most are project management tools designed for record labels who manage multiple artists. They assume you already know what tasks you need to accomplish, and provide a vehicle for tracking those tasks.
The one tool designed for individual independent musicians is largely a vehicle for useful strategic content, but does not utilize project management-style tracking and accountability tools.
Conclusion:
The needs of individual musicians haven't been met, and we should design a tool help them out.
Persona: Meet Jerome
Jerome has played in bands since his late teens, and now he finds himself wanting to write and record a solo album.
He has some experience working through this process with his former bandmates, but this time around he’s also working alone. He also wants to level-up his game, stick to his own deadlines and think through the task of managing this project to completion.
Jerome wants help writing, arranging, recording, mixing, mastering, releasing, promoting his next release.
Let’s help Jerome!
Inspiration:
From our competitor analysis, we were most inspired by the content found in Releasify. But we felt the presentation was a bit dry and it lacked tracking and accountability tools.
We decided to build something more playful and gamified, combining the playful nature of Duolingo and straightforward presentation of information like Noom
Storyboard:
Below is an example of how a user might use Bandmom.
Bandmom functions like many existing educational platforms.
The user explores the resources related to a specific task, works to complete the task, receives their reward, and then moves onto the next step.
User Flow:
Low Fidelity Prototyping:
We developed a few basic prototypes to test out these task flows.
Learning and adding a task to the to-do list
Completing a task and accepting your reward
High Fidelity Prototyping :
Our prototype involved:
An exciting video opening sequence with an introduction to the Bandmom character and tool and two task flows.
1) One in which the user would read through a series of screens and come away with ideas about how to proceed with their project out into the real world and do.
2) The follow-up to that sequence. With the user having completed that task in the real world, they now want to mark it as complete and move onto the next task.
Reflection and Next Steps
We completed the design of the overall look and feel of Bandmom.
We completed two iterations of two example task flows within a module, having made all changes suggested by our users
We are ready to replicate these flows (and then edit their content) using the template we designed in our site map. This will entail: writing all copy for each screen, designing and filling in graphics and icons as appropriate. Much of the rest of the app will follow the playbook of these example task flows.
Bandmom is ready to be fully designed. 80% of users felt strongly about the character / mascot and 100% of users liked the overall look and feel of the tool.
Let’s make Bandmom!
