Earbuds Music
Earbuds Music
Music — B2C Software
B2C Software
Host a livestream of your favorite music and listen along with your friends from anywhere in the world.
Host a livestream of your favorite music and listen along with your friends from anywhere in the world.
Overview
Overview
When I joined Earbuds a small startup (10 people) in the music industry, the team was just getting started, and I was their first UI Designer. EarBuds is a social music app that allows you to share music in the moment. My role for my 6-week contract was to apply visual design, participate in UX synthesis, and create a delightful user experience for EarBuds Music's beta app release.
When I joined Earbuds a small startup (10 people) in the music industry, the team was just getting started, and I was their first UI Designer. EarBuds is a social music app that allows you to share music in the moment. My role for my 6-week contract was to apply visual design, participate in UX synthesis, and create a delightful user experience for EarBuds Music's beta app release.
Competitors
Competitors
Vertigo
Flo
JQBX
Cymbal
Anchor
Stationhead
Join my Playlist
Outloud
Pulse
AmpMe
EVSDRP
Airtime
Vertigo
Flo
JQBX
Cymbal
Anchor
Stationhead
Join my Playlist
Outloud
Pulse
AmpMe
EVSDRP
Airtime
My Role
My Role
UI Design
UI Design
Contract Breakdown (6 Weeks)
Week 1: My first week was primarily focused on understanding and learning the Business and the current UX Strategy.
Week 2: I began to explore a visual design style for EarBuds iOS app, and I started to think out user flows and interactions that were on brand to establish a design system for the first internal beta release.
Week 3: The internal beta was released, and we started to create better agile project management solutions for our small team to deliver the best results for the product.
Week 4: Introduction to Design Thinking and UX field research strategy.
We focused on: Frame, Learn, Make
1. Frame a problem to guide our research.
2. Learn about people to gain empathy and create deep insights.
3. Make new ideas tangible and testable, sooner rather than later.
Week 4 & 5: I started to take part in our UX synthesis with the UX research team to become more knowledgeable about our user interviews. Interviews were conducted with one person holding the interview and the other responsible for capturing verbatim notes, while another recorded non-verbal cues, behaviors, and general context.
The goal of our interviews was to record stories, perceptions, attitudes, and body language; with a focus on seeking out implicit motivations, behaviors, and needs.
Week 6: For my final week, I prepared design files and assets to get the development team ready for the expansion of their internal beta launch.
Week 1: My first week was primarily focused on understanding and learning the Business and the current UX Strategy.
Week 2: I began to explore a visual design style for EarBuds iOS app, and I started to think out user flows and interactions that were on brand to establish a design system for the first internal beta release.
Week 3: The internal beta was released, and we started to create better agile project management solutions for our small team to deliver the best results for the product.
Week 4: Introduction to Design Thinking and UX field research strategy.
We focused on: Frame, Learn, Make
1. Frame a problem to guide our research.
2. Learn about people to gain empathy and create deep insights.
3. Make new ideas tangible and testable, sooner rather than later.
Week 4 & 5: I started to take part in our UX synthesis with the UX research team to become more knowledgeable about our user interviews. Interviews were conducted with one person holding the interview and the other responsible for capturing verbatim notes, while another recorded non-verbal cues, behaviors, and general context.
The goal of our interviews was to record stories, perceptions, attitudes, and body language; with a focus on seeking out implicit motivations, behaviors, and needs.
Week 6: For my final week, I prepared design files and assets to get the development team ready for the expansion of their internal beta launch.
Challenges
Challenges
My challenges were becoming knowledgeable about the business goals, the problem we were trying to solve, our target audience categories, how we were going to motivate our audience that our solution will solve their problem, and lastly delivering a scalable prototype the Earbuds team could build from and test with their consumers all within 6 weeks.
My challenges were becoming knowledgeable about the business goals, the problem we were trying to solve, our target audience categories, how we were going to motivate our audience that our solution will solve their problem, and lastly delivering a scalable prototype the Earbuds team could build from and test with their consumers all within 6 weeks.
Design Thinking & User Research
Design thinking helps us activate our research and turn insights about our people into design with powerful tools for framing problems and reframing opportunities.
Frame a problem to guide our research.
Learn about people to gain empathy and create deep insights.
Make new ideas tangible and testable, sooner rather than later.
Design Research Process Overview
From Data to Design - Synthesis
Synthesis begins with raw data – many forms of observations as notes, quotes, statistics and data points. During the synthesis process, content is filtered into themes, insights and finally distilled down to a few key opportunities that will inform the design moving forward.
Design Synthesis Work Flow
Design & Build
At EarBuds our user experience design strategy took advantage of weekly design sprints that stagger with our development’s build sprints. Design can stay ahead and create the time necessary to research and validate. Each week we worked on designs for upcoming sprints, prep for a day of user research on Thursday, debrief, synthesis on Friday and lastly planned our next steps.
Field Research
At EarBuds a UX Researcher leads the interview while one person is responsible for capturing verbatim notes, while another records non-verbal cues, behaviors, and general context. We record explicit stories, perceptions, attitudes, and body language; with a focus on seeking out implicit motivations, behaviors, and needs.
AEIOU Framework
Activities - Goal-directed sets of actions
Environments - Arena where activities take place
Interactions - Building blocks of activities
Objects - Building blocks of environments
Users - People whose behaviors, preferences and needs are being observed
Synthesis – Externalization
Make Observations
Look For Patterns
Make Meaning
Define Opportunities
Patterns & Categories
These are findings we collected after synthesizing the data the User Research team collected from their card sorting activities and usability testing.
Insights
Archetypes
Our archetypes were modeled around behavioral perspectives from our research.
Music Behavior Matrix
Beta Go-Live Flow Chart
Connect with Spotify
Connect with Spotify
Start by connecting your Spotify account so we can get access to all your awesome playlists.
Start by connecting your Spotify account so we can get access to all your awesome playlists.
Sessions, Explore, Go-Live
Sessions, Explore, Go-Live
Join your friend's sessions, explore sessions and discover new music while you make new friends, or Go-Live and start a session of your very own.
Join your friend's sessions, explore sessions and discover new music while you make new friends, or Go-Live and start a session of your very own.
Go-Live
Go-Live
Select a playlist, remove or shuffle songs around, name your session, choose your activity, and lastly pick your vibe. Now you're ready to Go-Live!
Select a playlist, remove or shuffle songs around, name your session, choose your activity, and lastly pick your vibe. Now you're ready to Go-Live!
Hosting Sessions
Hosting Sessions
When you're a host you can see your listeners, shuffle or skip songs at your leisure, mute if you need to talk to someone while your listeners can still enjoy your session, and end your session whenever you want.
When you're a host you can see your listeners, shuffle or skip songs at your leisure, mute if you need to talk to someone while your listeners can still enjoy your session, and end your session whenever you want.
Joining Sessions
Joining Sessions
Not into hosting, no worries. Just join a session of your choice, listen along, and have a good time!
Not into hosting, no worries. Just join a session of your choice, listen along, and have a good time!
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