Meg Louise Design - Music App

2-week rapid ideation, creating an app empowering online musical collaboration to foster mental wellbeing.

This was completed as past of my MA UX Design course, to experiment and reflect on my design process.

The Brief

The brief asked me to design a solution that enhances creativity and self-expression in people's daily lives.

As a self-taught musician, I already had an inkling that an app facilitating musical collaboration would fit this brief.

Research Process

I organised secondary reseach findings into an affinity map, to draw out larger themes.

My research was focused on the benefits of music-making, and barriers to participation.

I also conducted a competitive audit, revealing opportunities for innovation in existing products.

I realised that TikTok's 'duet' functionality, which allows users to record in tandem with others' videos, could be elevated with the addition of musician-specific features, such as metronomes and audio level controls.

My Problem/Opportunity Statement

The cost of living crisis and isolation from collaborative learning mean musicians of all ages can struggle to maintain motivation to practice their instrument. This means they miss out on cognitive benefits and social connections which promote good mental health and self-esteem.

My artefact aims to facilitate the creative collaboration of musicians, removing the barriers of distance, cost and scheduling, to encourage self-expression and the positive benefits of music-making.

I used my insights into goals and pain points to build four user personas which I could use to evaluate my designs.

Wireframing Process

After creating my first round of wireframes, I created journey maps using my personas to identify opportunities for improvement.

First round of wireframes

Journey map

Final Artefact

My journey map revealed that users needed more control over the interface.

I improved this in my second round of wireframes, allowing users to pause recording and adjust their metronome and sound levels from the recording interface.

Second round of wireframes

Evaluation

My key takeaway from this exercise was the value of creating quality user personas to facilitate effective decision making during the design process.

I was able to make decisions backed up my research insights, and therefore attentive to the needs and goals of users.

If I were to take the project further, I would be really keen to build these wireframes into a functional prototype to test with real users.