Soundcraft is a music streaming platform that empowers users to create their own music while listening and drawing inspiration from their favourite artists. With a mixture of creation and exploration, it offers a unique space for both inexperienced musicians and passionate listeners.
Robert is a passionate music lover who dreams of making his own music but is limited by a lack of resources and opportunities. In his area there is few musical groups or mentors, in which he struggles to find inspiration to begin his music career. While he enjoys listening to others music, he feels constricted by social barriers to express himself and pursue his passion.
To support Robert and users in a similar position, Soundcraft provides a platform that allows them to discover and listen to music, but also a space where they can pursue their musical passion. By offering features such as user friendly creation tools, users have a space to explore their musical talents.
To begin my brand development I firstly looked at the main competitors of music streaming apps, which are Spotify and Apple music. I analysed their colours, layout, connivence and navigation of each. Personally, I believe Spotify has an easier navigation system and better UI which is why I use it over Apple music. However, I didn’t want a biased opinion on either therefore I researched them both equally, looking at the pros and cons of both.
After researching them both I completed a Master Apprentice task, I tried to re create Spotify’s icons as best I could in preparation for creating my own icons. With this task I had an idea of what I wanted my app to include.
I then drew out some mind maps to generate some more ideas, which led me to then starting my sketches of the app and icons, then made the wireframes for my app. Next, I began to build my screens and icons on Figma. For the colour scheme I wanted people to recognise that this is a music app therefore I went with quite common colours for music apps.
After completing all my screens on Figma I wanted to prototype them to make this a functional app. I actually really enjoyed protyping, I found it quite easy to use and understand, I feel like I really got the grasp of protyping with this project.
The layout of playlist screen was something that I spent the most time on as I struggled trying to fit everything into one screen. I tried multiple different ways to lay this out and couldn't figure it out. To fix this I was looking on figma to see if they had any tools to help with this problem. From this I found the ruler tool. I used this to ensure I had consistent spacing throughout my screens. I also found from prototyping that I could elongate the screen therefore users can scroll to see the rest. This gave me much more space to create my playlist screen. This made my screens look more professional and clean.
Overall, the app came out well, I believe the navigation works well and I am happy with how the screens look visually.however looking back at my design process I do not think I have completed enough user research and are lacking enough description of my design process. User research is something that I am passionate about and feel it is the most important step in any project. When I was first told about a music app I think I thought I knew everything about music app users and those interested in music, as being one myself. However, from not completing this research I wasn't able to identify what the users want, I wasn't able to make informed design choice which meant the app is potentially unintuitive and isn't as enjoyable for the user. Overall, this project taught me that user research is crucial for creating a successful, user-centered product that resonates and relates with your audience. I will be ensuring user research is my main priority in future projects.