MARKETRECENT HISTORY OF MUSIC
While the music market is saturated, it has always been growing, evolving and changing since its creation. Existing as a $47 billion industry today, music is as relevant as ever and it appears to be a market that will never dry up.
RESEARCH QUESTIONSDIRECTING OUR DISCUSSIONS
Normally, I conduct research to better identify and pinpoint problems within a problem, however, this project involves conducting research to help my team and I ideate solutions and new experiences. Rather than conducting in-depth analysis on problems, we will be observing how people use music in their everyday lives. Throughout the research, we kept these three questions top of mind:
UNDERSTANDINGSTRIPPING DOWN MUSIC TO ITS FOUNDATIONS
To begin our research, we reviewed music in its entirety from the top and looked downwards in order to have a very broad view of the issues and solutions. On the contrary, if we started from the from the bottom and looked upwards, we would have a fairly narrow view of what we could see. Having a top to bottom view provides us with hundreds of decisions at different crossroads to get to a bottom. By going from abstract to concrete rather than from concrete to abstract, we are able to look at music from outside the box allowing us to work towards innovation. To apply this concept of Abstraction Hierarchy, we examined music by posing three abstract questions:
PICTURE STORYBOARDSHADOWING THE USER
Next, each member of the team examined a present or past experience of listening to music. We documented those experiences as a photo-based storyboard that captured place actors and interactions. We wanted to observe people enjoying music in everyday life hoping to provide insights into what their listening experience could be. Examples that teammates and I observed were people listening to shows on the radio, listening to records, watching someone making music, hearing a band play, observing someone compiling a mix-tape for a friend, and watching a peer commute to the supermarket. The one I made is to the right.
OUR FOCUSTHE FUTURE IS…MUSIC DISCOVERY
After our research, ideation, and observation, we decided to pursue interactive music discovery as the future of the music listening experience.
BRAINSTORM WRITE-UP
With an idea in mind, we brainstormed ways to turn this concept into a reality. Below is a link to our brainstorm work presented in a PDF file and our wireframes of the mobile concept.
DESIGN RESPONSETHE OUTCOME OF OUR IDEATION
Our work is represented as Noted, a way for people to discover new music while exploring new places.
Noted is a map-based app that leads users to destinations, hole-in-the-walls, and experiences they would not be aware of without access to the app. Noted does this by leading users to a song at specific destinations.
Additionally, Noted allows users to drop the song they are listening to at their current location creating a Notesphere. Users drop songs in order to share their experience with other users who might visit the same spot at a future time, whether it be in a month or in a year.
SCENARIO & MAGIC MOMENTSPICTURING NOTED IN THE HANDS OF THE USER
We envisioned different ways users would use Noted and what the perfect, magical moment would look like. These experiences act as a North Star for us when developing the design and interactions. Four magical moments Noted could provide users are:
EARLY CONCEPT VIDEO
& INTERACTION MODEL
On the left is a concept of a user using Noted to find a lovely secret garden and a new song. On the right is an interaction model that maps out our magical moment number four. By fleshing out our scenarios to real experiences and step by step interactions, we give our concept validity.
STYLE GUIDE
With the goal of giving Noted identity and consistency, we made a style guide.
FINAL SCREENSBUILDING FOR THE SCREEN FIRST
Aiming for Noted to ultimately be a futuristic VR/AR experience, we first explored how the concept would exist today.
HOMEPAGE & MAP VIEW
Noted presents to users a map with the location of nearby Notesheres. Selecting a Notesphere will provide users with more information about its location and musical content. If selected, Noted gives the user easy-to-follow directions to the Notesphere.
Click for a closer look
Click for a closer look
3D VIEW & ADD SONG
By following the directions given by Noted, users reach a new location to listen to new music left behind by previous users. Users are given the option to view the songs at that specific Notesphere and select which ones they want to listen to. The option to leave behind their own song at this Notesphere is also given to the user.
NOTIFICATIONS & MUSIC PLAYER
In addition to the main experience, we designed Noted’s music player view and an example of both in-app and out-of-app notifications.
Click for a closer look
INTERACTION USER FLOW
This video reveals the interaction model and user flow of Noted.
VIDEO EXPERIENCE USER STORY
To properly explain Noted and the importance of sharing not only music but also experiences, we created a video user story and prototype. View to watch Noted in action.
ONE STEP FURTHER
NOTED IN MIXED REALITY
Since our project began with us attempting to ideate the future of music listening and music experiences, we wanted to take Noted and our project one step further. Our next step to accomplish this goal was to imagine and design Noted for virtual and mixed reality. We develop a revised interaction model of Noted that incorporates AR/VR interactions and create a new experience walkthrough that showcases the potential integration of AR/VR interaction elements into Noted.
MAKING IT POSSIBLE
It would take a lot for Noted VR to be practical right now, but with the proper scalability of technology, it will become a possibility.
MIXED REALITY VIDEO EXPERIENCE USER STORY
We returned to the field to make another user story video experience to show the potential of Noted Mixed Reality:
LOOKING BACK &
RUNNING FORWARD
In a future exploration of this project, I would like to further develop Noted using more of the ideas we ideated in the brainstorming phase and addressing existing issues with the concept such as:
“Routes” and Playlists. This idea revolves around taking the users on a path while playing a user-submitted playlist. Through this feature, users will be able to enjoy an extended magical moment and new routes rather than just a single new place.
Accessible Interactions. The current Mixed Reality experience includes inaccessible gestures and movements. In future iterations of this project, I want to critically ideate on overcoming these obstacles.
Safety Concerns. Computer-supported cooperative works (CSCW) that involve users’ location and location services always have inherent safety concerns. An immediate next step for this project is to start discussing with my teammates what exactly are the evil ways this product could be used and how we can combat them.
CONCLUSIONTHE FUTURE OF OUR DISCIPLINE
I believe that the concept of user experience will move beyond just tech, such as websites and applications, and migrate into other fields that currently lack it. With new interaction paradigms such as AR, AI, and improved wearables beginning to take root, how people interact with their environments and our products will completely change, allowing designers to create connections in ways we never could before. As our world grows more comfortable with AR and AI, there will be a blurring of the line between online and offline experiences for the user. A long term goal of mine as a designer is to integrate user experience into an offline space which creates deeply empathetic experiences that people from all backgrounds can utilize. Through this project, I feel I have taken the first steps toward this goal, strengthening my desire to marry design and mixed reality.
Thanks for reading.
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