cataloguing one's growth as an audiophile
A well-known London record label enlisted a digital product studio to design the UX for two user stories of a proof-of-concept app they hoped to launch in the future. A social networking and acquisition-based service, the app targeted vinyl collectors who were interested in buying, trading, and sharing their collections with fellow aficionados.
above photos by rolinsndvl & emmafranceslogan @ unsplash
Our research focused on two personas: Claudio, a retired furniture-maker who likes to stay occupied and constantly has music playing as an undercurrent in his life, and Michelle, a young professional and amateur enthusiast who started her collection when she was gifted a record player for her birthday.
"Music makes the day go smoother."
— Claudio
After brainstorming several ideas with the team, I decided to focus on building out a musical "genealogy" feature that would allow users to organize their collection into one or more interconnected timelines that depicted the evolution of their musical tastes, and distilled this into a user story in which the user adds an album to their timeline.
I also designed a rudimentary menu that can be slid or tapped up from the logo at the bottom as an on-brand navigation option that makes a stylistic departure from the notorious "hamburger". For tone of voice, I went in a direction was solidly from the user's perspective, to increase usability and familiarity, as well as to encourage future development to think from the perspective of the user, following the principles of Sophia Prater's Object-Oriented UX.
After discussing and researching various approaches to finding and adding albums, I went with a real-time fuzzy search approach to allow users to find and add albums more swiftly, unhampered by typos or having to press a submit button:
When designing this feature, I also placed a heavy emphasis on gestures and drag-and-drop-based functionalities, to make the experience of adding, removing, and linking records as sleek and enjoyable as possible.
