LoveBeats Case Study
Timeline My Role
Overall: 5 weeks UX Designer, UX Reseacher and Prototyper
Discovery & Research: 2 weeks
Design & testing: 3 weeks
PROBLEM
Music producers often struggle to find an audience for their beats, while artists struggle to find beats that suit their style and budget.
Additionally, many beat selling platforms are overly complex and difficult to use, making it hard for users to find and purchase beats.
THE SOLUTION
Conceptualize an app
WHITE PAPER RESEARCH
The global music production software market is expected to reach $13.98 billion by 2026.
Starting with white paper research, I began to draw from research articles on the topic of goals, motivation, and achievement- when I stumbled upon an eye-opening statistic from Billboard
“The global music production software market is expected to have a a compound annual growth rate of 9.7% from 2021 to 2026.”
These statistics demonstrate the potential for music-related mobile applications like LoveBeats to thrive in the market.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS + THE GAP
The competition had NO USER-FRIENDLY aspect.
While keeping the above statistic in mind, I analyzed the 4 most popular apps surrounding this goal/productivity space. I found that almost none of them had this aspect of user-friendly features to help the user achieve their goals. This then became my opportunity for the solution.
USER INTERVIEWS
My interviewees were 3x more likely to succeed when there user-friendly/beginners features for their goals.
Although I saw from research user-friendly features was important, I’ve conducted interviews with 4 students who failed at achieving their personal goals. I’ve asked them questions below to find trends on why they failed at some goals versus others then organized my data through affinity mapping.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS:
Tell me about the last goal you set for music production?
What features or tools do you wish LoveBeats had that it currently does not?
How important is the quality and variety of beats available on LoveBeats to you as a user?
How convenient is your purchase process on other apps?
What features or functions do you wish LoveBeats had that it currently doesn't offer?
User Journey
A music producer looking for high-quality beats can easily find and purchase them through LoveBeats.
Based on my User Journey map, I’ve noticed how if there is no pain or real consequence associated with NOT achieving their goal as was the case in previous apps they’ve used, motivation to continue cease to exist.
User PERSONA
DESIGN
Setbacks + a new direction for user-friendly features
At first, I spent 3 days on discovering a phase. During the discovery phase, I conducted market research to identify the target audience, understand their needs and pain points, identify similar apps in the market, and as well as what platform I should make it available on. The same effects can be achieved though a simple smart phone app, hence- I stuck to an app for my final solution platform.
TESTING + IMPROVEMENTS
2 Major improvements in my design
Based on various feedback from 8 other peers + mentor feedback, I continually iterated my design with 2 major improvements:
THE FINAL SCREENS
The final product
CONCLUSION + LESSONS LEARNED
What I’ve Learned.
I’m immensely grateful to have been through an entire UX process so I can see what it’s actually like. On that note, a few things I’ve learned:
Iterate as much as you can
Focus more on tradeoffs with each direction
Be insight- not process-driven
You didn’t fail- you just found 100 ways that didn’t work