TurnTable UI/UX Design

The second capstone project of the course allows students to choose a project from an existing list of hypothetical company briefs. A hypothetical startup has created a music app but needs some assistance improving its premium option and the flow to sign up for a paid subscription.  I conducted competitor research, usability testing, and developed a prototype from my own sketches. The project subject was selected from a list of available briefs.

By conducting competitor research, I was able to compare Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, Apple Music, and Pandora. I compared their onboarding process and basic user experience. By compiling likes and dislikes of each platform I began forming an idea of what the tool I create could look like. 

The target user defined by the project brief is: 

18 - 24 years old

Very tech-savvy — they are on their phones for several hours a day

Very budget-conscious

This type of media [music/movies/books] is a very important part of their lives

The first stages of planning involved user flows and lo-fi wireframes. At this stage, the app didn’t look very different than any other music player app. 

In order to set TurnTable aside, there are a few features to implement. 

The beauty of streaming and the internet means we can access music that we love from anywhere. However, existing music streaming apps don’t leave much room for artists to provide their insights and motivations behind the music they create. For a while, Spotify and Genius partnered and featured snippets of interviews from artists. The goal of the Creator Hub in TurnTable is to do that and more. It would highlight TV/movie features, photography inspired by an album, and more. 

Party Time allows users to create groups and listen to music with their friends remotely. The feature includes a chat function and with the paid subscriptions they would be able to activate a voice chat. Users also have the option to “Party Again” with previous groups. 

The overall focus of TurnTable is to give artists a voice and more autonomy over the ways their music is shared with the world. The app focuses on highlighting full albums as artists wrote them instead of algorithm-created playlists. 

After getting the basics down, I conducted a first round of usability testing. This is where I had the opportunity to pitch the two new features and get some insight on whether potential users would actually find them useful. One interaction I wanted to elevate was the navigation to browse categories. Since TurnTable's intention is to tap into the nostalgia of records, I created a rotation that mimicked flipping through record albums.