INDUSTRY

B2C Music

Roles

UX Research, User Experience Design, & User Interface Design

TEAM

Solo project

Overview

Apple, being a leading streaming music service, aims to maintain its position by enhancing user engagement and retention on its app.

Challenge

Integrate a new feature in the Apple music app that enables users to follow, chat, and share music effortlessly with other users.

Solution

To enhance the user experience of Apple music, introduce a social feature that promotes collaboration and learning, facilitates music discovery, and fosters a vibrant online music community.

Duration

Three weeks

Empathize

• Research Plan

• Secondary Research

• Competitive Analysis

• User Interviews

• Empathy Map

• User Persona

Define

• User/Business/Shared Goals

• Feature Roadmap

• App Map

• Task Flow

Ideate

• High-Fidelity Wireframes

• Brand Standards

• Style Guide Integration

• Final Design

Testing/iteration

• Usability Testing

• Affinity Map

• Revised Designs

• Learnings

Goal 1
Who are the potential users of Apple Music's social feature?

Goal 2
What are the reasons for users preference to subscribe to online music streaming services?

Goal 3
How do users discover, share, and learn about new music, what drives this motivation?

Goal 4
How does music evoke emotions, shape feelings, and contribute to one's self-image?

1. Secondary research, takeaway

• Music social features are currently limited and not widely used, with few or no options to collaborate on music

• Existing music apps have limited or no music learning features

• Sharing music is popular among users as it fosters a sense of belonging, allows expression of emotions, contributes to self-image, and helps establish connections with others

2. Competitive analysis, takeaway

• Provide users with the ability to discover, learn, share, and collaborate on music through the app with other users

• Allow for greater customization of user profiles to facilitate music discovery and connection with others who share similar interests

• Introduce a social feed for connected users to explore what others are listening to and saying about the music

3. User interviews, takeaway

• Enable users to discover new music and genres easily by viewing what friends and followed users are listening to

• Allow users to collaborate on playlists with others, share their favorite songs and albums, and add comments and reactions to shared music

• Offer ways for users to learn and discuss new music trends through chat and following music influencers

To identify music and social behavior traits, I conducted interviews with music subscribers and social media users who regularly engage in social activities and actively listen to music. 

After conducting the interviews, I analyzed and synthesized the data to uncover user insights and emotions. The findings revealed:

+ Users desire effortless and convenient ways to share music with others

+ Users prefer discovering new music through other users and their recommendations

+ Users express a strong desire to engage in discussions and learn about emerging music trends

After completing the empathy map, I had a clear understanding of the users' needs, goals, and frustrations. Using this reference point, I developed an ideal user persona with an empathic approach, which helped me create context for the app's feature development.

The persona helped me flesh out the users' traits and define their goals, needs, and frustrations, which further informed the app integration process.

Business goals

• Enhance user engagement and retention by seamlessly integrating a social feature

• Enable users to discover, learn, and share music with others through the social feature

• Attract and retain more customers by staying competitive in the music streaming industry

User goals

• Discover new music and genres effortlessly through the community of users

• Collaborate and share playlists easily with other music enthusiasts

• Engage with other users to learn about and discuss the latest music trends

Shared goals

• Stay up-to-date with the latest music industry and social trends

• Enhance music social interaction, learning, and exploration within the app

• Embrace emerging social technology to improve the user experience

After defining the business, user, and shared goals for the app integration, I ideated and categorized key integration features. I created an initial list of features and organized them based on their category and feasibility.

After finalizing the feature roadmap, I proceeded to create the app map to visualize the integration information architecture and streamline the screen flow. The app map provides an overview of the app's navigation and organization, highlighting how the integration fits within the current system.

After completing the app map, I developed an essential task flow for the specific action of "creating a collaborative playlist" through the user's profile. By reviewing the existing steps for completing tasks in the Apple Music app, I was able to ideate how to seamlessly integrate the new flow for this task.

Once the task flow was finalized, I created high-fidelity wireframes to visually depict the connections between screens and ensure seamless integration with the rest of the app. 

In designing the screen layouts:

+ I drew inspiration from Spotify's social user flows and aimed to create a simpler and less confusing experience for users

+ I carefully considered how the current app functions to ensure a smooth transition between existing and new flows

+ I kept the users' needs and preferences at the forefront of my decisions and made design choices that align with their goals and desires

I leveraged Apple's established brand standards, including the logo, color palette, and typography, to ensure a seamless integration of the new feature into the app.

Apple Music logo

Apple Music app icon

After finalizing the wireframes, I proceeded to develop the visual style of the app integration and created a style guide that would blend in seamlessly with the rest of Apple's UI brand guidelines.

Upon reviewing the existing colors, I found that the red font used did not meet accessibility standards when displayed on a white background. To address this issue I changed the color to purple, since purple meets accessibility standards on a white background and it also evokes emotion of creativity. I suggest reconsidering the color palette for the entire app to ensure ADA compliance.

Final feature user interface

After developing the UI kit, I used it to incorporate both new and existing design elements into the wireframe-defined screens. By doing so, I achieved a visually consistent and seamless user experience, which in turn allowed for a more unified integration of the app's components.

Objectives

• Pinpoint any steps within the feature that may cause confusion or difficulty for users to complete their assigned tasks

• Identify any instances of inconsistency in feature integration across the user experience

• Evaluate for any difficulties when attempting to create a collaborative playlist via user profiles, and measure how long it takes for task completion

User tasks

• Task 1: Navigate to user profile in the Apple Music App

• Task 2: Create a collaborative playlist through the user profile

• Task 3: Add songs and friends to the collaborative playlist

Test goals

• Assess the user's ability to successfully create a collaborative playlist, and gain valuable insights into how this task can be improved

• Develop a comprehensive list of feature integration improvements, prioritizing them based on their feasibility and level of importance

Upon concluding the usability testing phase, I constructed an affinity map to better organize and summarize the testing results, classifying them under categories such as successes, opportunities, and priorities.

Based on these findings, I identified the following areas for iteration and improvement: 

+ Develop an enhanced experience for creating a collaborative playlist using individual songs
+ Create an improved experience for creating a collaborative playlist using pre-existing playlists

This project helped me gain insight into users' desire to connect socially through music, as well as their preferred methods for discovering new songs and genres. It was apparent that many users rely on recommendations from their peers or other members of the music community, rather than solely relying on algorithm-based suggestions. While staying up-to-date with current and popular trends is important for music enthusiasts, it's equally crucial to have access to novel and diverse music genres to keep the experience fresh and exciting.