No New Friends
When I began my junior year at Michigan, I had no intention of joining Shift. To be honest, I hadn’t even heard of Shift. Cut to Festifall, a campus wide event where all students orgs set up tables to recruit new members at the beginning of the year. I was there promoting my dance team, which happened to be next to Shift’s table. It looked pretty cool, so I decided to venture over and check it out. After a couple minutes of browsing, I realized that this club was exactly what I was looking for. I had been in a rut professionally, and had been searching for an outlet to learn more about UX Research and Design. Shift was the perfect fit. A couple weeks later, there I was, in my first Sandbox. I tend to go into things with specific expectations of what I’m going to get out of it. With Shift, I was there to gain real-life UX experience and push myself to develop as a designer. To be quite frank, I wasn’t there to make new friends — I already had my circles. But that all changed.
Before I touch on the heartfelt stuff, I have to emphasize that I did indeed grow as a designer. I grew A LOT. I went into the year knowing that I wanted to take on a UX Research and Design project. I wanted to define a problem, emphasize with users, ideate, and prototype. I was able to do all those things, and more. My project was built on my love for Spotify and music. As a dancer, music has always been a real-life source of magic. I love the feeling you get when you hear a favorite song for the first time. How it makes me start to sway and close my eyes. And more so, I love sharing and discovering music with my peers. There’s something about receiving a message from a friend saying “This song reminds me of you, I think you’ll like it” that makes my heart soar every time. Knowing this, I set out to create a way for music lovers like me to connect with their friends over these songs or artists.
Upon conversation with one of my fellow Creators in Shift, we realized that we were passionate about exploring how friends share music via Spotify. As avid Spotify users, we began discussing our experience with the platform — the things we loved, and the things we weren’t so keen on. One thing that frustrated us both was sharing music with friends. Many of my friends will send me their current obsessions over iMessage, only to get buried under a pile of more texts. It becomes hard to keep track of what my friends want to share with me or even what their current listening habits are, especially on the app. And thus, Melomane was born.
The idea behind Melomane is a platform for Spotify users where they can see their friends’ listening history, listen to music in real time with friends, and share posts about their favorite artists or asking for recommendations on songs to listen to during quarantine. Melomane brings about a discussion of music through posts, listening activity, and listening sessions. All in one place. The most challenging aspect of this project was creating something that has its own value. I didn’t want to give users another Spotify. Spotify is great at what it does. There were times when I found myself creating screens with features that already existed on Spotify, because I was thinking too much about fleshing out every possible problem my product could solve. In reality, a product that does 2 or 3 things efficiently and effectively is a great product. It took me stepping back and remembering what the initial purpose of Melomane was to understand this. And my product became all the better. What’s next for Melomane? I am a bit of a perfectionist, so I’m planning on twiddling around with the visual design and animation well into the summer. There are features that I want to flesh out more like the Listen with Friends feature. As for me? I’m planning on continuing to grow as a UX Designer, but focus more on graphic design…we’ll have to see what next year has in store.
Now I’m sure you’re wondering when I’m going to get back to the heartfelt bit. Well you’re in luck. You’ll recall that I was being anti-social at the beginning because I already “had enough friends”. But I ended up building some of the most special friendships this year. I met people who were my mentors, fellow music lovers, and support system. I met people who helped me see the value in creating something for myself and not to get a fancy internship or clout on campus. These people taught me to see myself as a UX Designer, even though I never felt that I had the chops to be one. Imposter syndrome is real at a place like Michigan, because you are constantly surrounded by the smartest and most creative people. But my friends at Shift refused to let me think of myself as any less.
I’m having a difficult time putting into words exactly how much my Shift family means to me. It’s hard to describe the feeling of laughing so hard you get a six pack or the warmth of a space filled with the buzz of creators working away. Shift was a place where I was pushed to reach my full potential and at the same time, a safe space where I could vent. I can only hope that once I graduate, I will be able to find a family like this wherever I end up. It is a space unlike any other I have encountered at Michigan and I sure am glad I decided to check out their table that sunny day in September.
I am a UX Designer currently studying at the University of Michigan. When I’m not designing, I enjoy dancing, listening to alternative music, and surrounding myself with weird people. I am an avid peanut butter connoisseur and a big fan of winter hats.
