Vibeat is a music streaming mobile and web app that advertises itself as the best platform for sharing and analysis of music taste.
The goal of this product is to let users easily view and compare their music tastes with others using listening activity.
UI UX Researcher / Product Designer
Q1 2023 (Jan - Feb)
In 2021, Spotify Wrapped was shared 60 million times on social media by users. People love seeing not only their music stats but comparing it with others.
I conducted a user survey to put these ideas to the test. This revealed that users usually choose a streaming service for convenience or because their friends use it (18 out of 23 responses). Additionally, common issues include unavailable songs and overpriced subscriptions (15/23).
*Data taken from Statista 2023
Music is an extremely social activity as seen with concerts and playlist sharing. Vibeat aims to address the gap that current music streaming services lack when it comes to sharing music taste.
The current app will provide data visualizations of the user’s listening activity, including top songs, artists, and genres, as well as the ability to compare listening activity between friends and popular artists.
Based on the market research of music streamers, this persona was created to better understand the target user.
Valerie is a college student who has a very unique taste in music, with her top genres being Kpop, rap, and jazz. She loves sharing music recommendations with her friends. Valerie would benefit from Vibeat’s ability to view and compare music tastes.
Before I begin designing, mapping out the main user flows and smaller user flows helps me understand the journey in its entirety. Below is a simplified user flow of what a basic start to finish journey looks like while comparing music tastes with another user.
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A moderated usability study was conducted with 5 participants (2 male, 3 female) with an age range of 19-58. Participants had varying levels of expertise with technology, which helped in making the app as accessible as possible. All participants were tasked with comparing music tastes with another user.
Although users did not directly point out issues with the original data charts, using KPI's such as time on task and user error rates, there was a better way to display the data.
The updated data charts feature pie charts instead of stacked bar charts and displays the percentages of each data point. This allows users to easily scan the data and provides a better visualization of the percentages.
Users questioned why the comparison range wasn't customizable when comparing music tastes between users.
The updated design features comparisons of listening activity from this week, this month, this year, and all time. This change provides users more agency and allows the comparison feature to be utilized more than once.
The music exploration feature makes it easy to find new music via algorithm recommendations and dive right into listening to top artists.
This is seen through their favorite playlists and artists being showcased on the home page, as well as new releases from recommended artists. Additionally, at the bottom of every song/album/artist/playlist page, there are recommendations for similar music.
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The comparison of music tastes showcases comparison graphs that make the data easy to scan and interpret.
This includes playlists that highlight similarities and differences in music taste.
The similarities playlist shows songs both users have listened to, while the differences playlist shows songs the users have listened to individually.
A challenging aspect of this project was designing the app for cross-platform use on web and mobile. My goal was to keep the elements as consistent as possible while changing the layouts, resulting in designs that are still familiar to users. Overall, I believe I achieved this goal by keeping the visual design similar across platforms.
When creating Vibeat, I tried to reference Spotify and other music streaming platforms.
My goal was for Vibeat to be comparable, but not identical to any competitor. In the end, I was very happy with the final designs of Vibeat and I believe they are up to standard with other music streaming apps, without being a replica.
The next steps would be to conduct another usability study on the updated mockup, focusing on the music recommendations and ease of browsing music.
