MusicMatch — A UI/UX case study on a platform where people can connect through similar
music tastes
We can share our music with other people on different social media platforms. At times it’s frustrating to hop into other platforms to share your music preferences. Sometimes, we also use dating apps to find people with similar music taste because your taste in music says a lot about your personality. What if you could do all these things in one place with the most effective yet casual form of socialising.
Introduction
Music is a powerful means of communication. It provides a means by which people can show emotions, intentions and meanings even though their spoken languages may be mutually incomprehensible. Musical expression helps us to experience, comprehend and manage our emotions. This helps maximise our emotional intelligence and improves our relationship with others.This, in turn, improves our quality of life. Furthermore, music isn’t just a way to communicate and express different moods.
Studies have shown that different tastes in music do have a great impact on your relationship. Music can be the best information about your partner. Revealing musical taste of a person reveals a lot about the person’s character, natures, likes, dislikes and more without having to put in the extra effort of knowing each other.
We usually tend to develop a liking for people who share our music preferences, likewise they tend to share other similarities as well. Those with the same music preferences are more often like minded. Even if you are dating an introvert, music is something that will open more scopes of discussion and conversation.
Competitor Analysis case studies
I chose seven apps to look at- six being direct competitors and one being abstractly related. I ended up with Apple Music, Spotify, Instagram, Bumble, Tinder, MeetUp, and Snapchat. For my competitor analysis, I focused on the SWOT analysis (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat).
Apple Music
Collaborating on the ultimate playlist with your friends is a really fun way to keep everyone up to date on the hottest tracks. If your group of friends is interested in music, you’re obligated to share every great track you come across. Whether you send it to the group chat or through social media, sharing our favourite songs with our friends is one of the best ways to find new music. If only there was a way you could team up to create the ultimate playlist that all of your friends could add to whenever they please.
Spotify
Bonding with a friend or loved one over your favourite shared music creates a relationship like no other. Spotify’s latest personalised experience, blend, is rolling out of beta to Spotify free and premium users globally to help sync your tastes even further and put your music compatibility to the test.
New way for two users to merge their musical tastes into one shared playlist mode just for them, making it even easier for users to connect, discover and bond over the music they love with one another. Plus points are new cover arts to easily identify each of your listening preferences compared to your friends’ and shareable data stories that are unique to every listening pair and can be shared across social channels.
Instagram allows users to edit and upload photos and short videos through a mobile app. Users can add a caption to each of their posts and use hashtags and location-based geotags to index these posts and make them searchable by other users within the app. Each post by a user appears on their followers’ Instagram feeds and can also be viewed by the public when tagged using hashtags or geotags. Users also have the option of making their profile private so that only their followers can view their posts.
MeetUp
MeetUp is a platform for finding and building local communities. People use MeetUp to meet new people, learn new things, find support, get out of their comfort zones, and pursue their passions, together.
Bumble
Healthy relationships are central to living a positive, productive life. Bumble is a social network that allows you to feel empowered while you make those connections, whether you’re dating, looking for friends, or growing your professional network. One first move on Bumble could change your life.
Bumble is a more than an app, it’s a movement. They encourage integrity, kindness, equality, confidence, and respect during all stages of any relationship — whether online or offline. Bumble is where people go to learn how to establish and maintain healthier connections.
Tinder
According toTinder, the app prioritises users who are most active and matches you with others who are active at the same time. It doesn’t collect race or income data but considers those details you inputted when you signed up — how far someone is from you, their gender, and age.
Snapchat (Bitmoji)
Emoji provide us with a whole new world of expressiveness when we’re online, but they aren’t exactly personal. Fortunately, Bitmoji allows us to customise our characters to create incredibly realistic depictions of ourselves to share with our friends and family without losing any of the appeal of using emoji.
Bitmoji is an accessory app for social media platforms that people use to create little cartoon versions of themselves, which they then use on their various social media accounts.
It’s a very simple service:You create an avatar of yourself and create various comics, GIFs, expressions, and reactions that use this avatar. Then, when you are communicating with someone in a chat or via email, you can use your Bitmoji to express yourself.
Looking at the strengths and weaknesses of direct and indirect competitors, i could start thinking of ways to differentiate MusicMatch and what are the possible features which might help users to navigate and move through my product.
User Research
To find ideas, find problems. To find problems, talk to people. — Julie Zhou, Designer and Author
A person’s relationship with a product or service changes over time. Energy rises and falls as users feel curiosity, pleasure, and satisfaction. Users may also hit negative patches of doubt, frustration, and anger.
An experience stirs emotions and generate memories. It embraces dramatic action, sensory engagement, and temporal interaction with users. During an experience, users create meanings and associations that become more important than the event itself.
Designers work with users in order to understand the context of the project and learn how new solutions could improve people’s lives. When users play an active role in the design process, they become expert witness to a human task or challenge. A range of exercises- from focus groups to brainstorming sessions- help prompt discussion, stimulate creative thinking, and build empathy between designers and users.
Questions asked during user interviews:
While listing down the questions, I focused on four things i.e. Who, What, When, and Why? Following are the set of questions I asked people during user interviews.
Who?
- Gender (Male/female/prefer not to say)
- Marital status (single/married/ divorced)
3. Education (10th/12th/graduation/post- graduation/higher) (Science/. Commerce/arts) (major field)
4. Music taste -Tempo (slow/fast), top three favourite genres, music artists/ bands, songs.
What?
- Current usage of music apps (Spotify, jio saavn, apple music, amazon music, youtube music)
2. Current usage of social networking apps (Facebook, instagram, snapchat, whatsapp, telegram, tinder, bumble)
Why?
- Purpose of using social media apps (Keep in touch with friends, keep in touch with family, meet new people, showcase your work/talent, others)
2. Do you usually accept friend/ connection requests from strangers? (Yes/No)
When?
- Overall time based on these social networking apps (Less than 1 hour per day/between 1–2 hours per day/more than two hours per day)
2. Particular app based (Facebook, instagram, snapchat, whatsapp, bumble, tinder, spotify etc.)
User Personas
Designers use personas to imagine how different people with different desires and abilities will experience your tool or service. The characteristics of a person can include general demographics as well as specific quirks and interests. The most valuable personas are based on observing real people. Several personas become archetypes representing different needs, abilities, and levels of interests.
Background — user contact — data collection — transform data into design relevant information — incubation — design outcomes
Co-creation encompasses numerous modes of participation. Users might describe their own situations, analyse a problem, or propose new solutions. Dissecting prior experiences and current beliefs primes users to imagine the future.
I conducted another activity where I send out a google for to each and everyone of my target age group and asked few questions like three favourite songs, three favourite genres and three favourite artists or bands. Everyone had different choices of songs, genres, artists and bands. Then I created a mix playlist which contained all their songs. I told them to choose up to three random songs and listen to them and record themselves while listening to the songs.This is how I was able to see their expressions and emotions while they were listening to a song which was completely different from their choice.
Navigation Flow
I came up with a detailed flowchart that identifies the possible paths that can be taken on MusicMatch. Here’s what it looks like:
Wireframes
I created a bunch of wireframes for exploring different layouts and flows for onboarding, fill in the personal details, fill in the music details, profile cards, chat, calendar and meetup event.
UI Frames
This application should be more focused on a person’s music taste rather than the physical appearance. It can be used for meeting new people, gaining some knowledge about music, finding someone who is interested in being a part of a musical event, interacting with their favourite musical artists etc. We usually associate a particular song or a genre with a colour palette. So when users have to choose their favourite song/genres/artists, the colour theme of their application would be changed. This is how the one who is viewing the profile would get to the music taste on the basis of colour theme.
Because we are not able to see the face of a person, one might develop trust issues. So why not add a feature of creating your own avatars like bitmoji on snapchat.
Final Thoughts
Overall it was fun doing something new and me myself being a music lover was able to empathise with the target audience. Also I learnt different ways and methods of conducting user research. I would like to continue this project and make it an actual product because of its uniqueness and because everyone loved the concept.
This project helped me with learning new aspects of UI/UX Design and also helped me boost up my self-confidence.
I am excited to see where MusicMatch goes and I am hopeful that it breaks into the app store and google play sometime in the future because MusicMatch has potential to make it big!
