Overview
ActionAction Records is an independent record label with a core team of six. The team is entirely distributed, working at different hours and locations on a regular basis. Each team member has multiple roles; five of them are responsible for finding and signing new artists. They receive hundreds of demos each month and are currently fielding submissions by email. They've been using complicated spreadsheets to keep track and determine which acts they'd like to move forward with. ActionAction Records would like an internal tool that will help their small team go through and listen to each of the demos quickly and efficiently.
The Process
Define
The Requirements:
- Each team member is required to listen and evaluate each demo submission.
- Because they collectively decide if they want to move forward with each artist, it is imperative that they can connect and communicate within the tool.
- While the team makes decisions as a group, they each need to be able to work and listen to demos independently.
User Persona Development:
Using the requirements listed above and background information received about the team, I developed a user persona to better understand who I was designing for.
Kate, the busy A&R Rep
Kate has been with ActionAction for two years and is based in Atlanta, GA. She tends to listen to demos on her commute to a co-working space twice a week and at home at night. She typically reserves her office time for catching up on emails and meeting remotely with her team. She hates having to create a playlist from the email submissions and having to quickly make notes when she’s at a stop light in traffic.
Behaviors:
- Out of the office 60% of the time
- Uses smartphone and apps like Slack to communicate to team, but prefers to check up on email via desktop.
- Often uses apps like Spotify to stream music on a regular basis
Goals:
- To be able to listen to submissions without having to download them individually from emails.
- To be able to listen to submissions at any time
- To be able to have an idea of what other team members think of a submission prior to scheduled meetings
- To be able to make notes on submissions in real time
Explore & Design:
Once this project had been defined and user personas created, I explored different user flows using sketches which were translated into hi-fidelity wireframes.
Log In Screen
Home Screen
Team Screen
Demo Screen
I created a home screen with an overview of new submissions and activity of other team members. Here, the user is able to get a quick glance at the number of submissions they have on their plate, as well as what their team members have been up to. The user can also see which submissions have been selected to move forward.
On the next tab, which is the Team Screen, this screen essentially contains each of the items “rolled up” on the home screen. The user is able to see new demos which need to be listened to by the user, and slide the card left or right to see team activity and Round 2 picks. From there, the user can click on a demo and be taken to the next tab.
Here on the Demo tab, the user is able to listen to the demos. This functionality is similar to that of typical streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora, as our research determined that the user is likely to use a streaming service on a regular basis. The demos would play back to back, without having to load another or placed in a playlist unless desired. I’ve also added a place to comment on each demo to so that the team can connect and communicate about a track as they are listening to it.
Deliver:
Once the high-fidelity design was created and refined, I created a clickable prototype above of the screens to test interactions, look and feel of the future final product.
Role: UX/UI design