Overview
Quick Peek at a Glance
WaveRave was born from a simple idea: EDM fans and creators deserve a seamless, connected experience. Imagine effortlessly discovering new tracks, sharing your own beats, and connecting with a community that speaks the language of music. Picture exploring upcoming events, converting playlists without hassle, and diving deeper into your favorite tracks with the help of AI, unlocking stories behind the sound. WaveRave isn’t just another music app—it’s a dynamic space where fans and creators come together, breaking down barriers and amplifying the EDM experience like never before.
My Role
- Product Designer
- User Researcher
- Interaction Designer
- UI Designer
Deliverables
- User Interviews
- Competitor Research
- Information Architecture
- Component Library
- Figma Prototype
Timeline
- Apr - Nov 2024
The Pain Points Behind the Music
EDM fans struggle with switching between apps for music, events, and community, creating a broken beat. This disjointed experience is frustrating and takes away from full immersion in the EDM experience.
Solution
An All-In-One, EDM-Exclusive App is the Solution
- Select Your Favorites: Choose up to 3 artists and 3 genres to kickstart personalized recommendations.
- Limited to 3 Options: Initial choices help us tailor your experience, with ongoing refinement as you listen to more music.
- Personalized Recommendaions: After selection, you'll land on the home page featuring:
- Top picks curated for you.
- New releases tailored your taste.
- Personalized playlists crafted to your vibe.
- Music suggestions by vibe to match your mood.
- Genre-specific picks to deepen your favorites.
- Event Page Details: Access all the essentials in one place, including genre, date, location, lineup, playlists, event tips, and ways to connect with the community.
- Discover Artist Events: Explore upcoming events for your favorite artists directly from their page while enjoying their music.
- Personalized Event Recommendations: Get event suggestions tailored to your listening habits for a truly customized experience.
- Explore by Genre or Artist: Find events that match your vibe by searching through your favorite genres or specific artists.
- Explore Track Details: Dive into the story behind each track with detailed genre insights, BPM info, and behind-the-scenes information.
- AI Music Assistant: Unlock instant answers and deep insights about the music you love — just ask AI.
- Effortless Playlist Import: Quickly transfer entire playlists by simply pasting links from other music apps.
- Bulk Download or Add: Download multiple tracks at once or instantly add them to your playlists with a single click.
- Track Editing for Edge Cases: Edit details for unmatched tracks to ensure a smooth and seamless import experience.
- Direct Sharing: Share your favorite tracks and events with friends, all within the app.
- Seamless Messaging: Stay connected with direct messaging for quick and effortless communication.
- Add Friends: Grow your network by adding and connecting with friends in the app.
- Effortless Music Upload: Share your music productions and the inspiration behind them with ease.
- Engagement Overview: Get a quick snapshot of how your uploads are performing.
- Deeper Insights: Explore in-depth analytics to better understand your audience and interactions.
Research
Unlocking Insights Through Conversation
To truly understand the needs of the users, I began by engaging them in conversations—learning their challenges, desires, and pain points firsthand. These insights became the foundation of the project, ensuring that every step—especially the competitor analysis—focused on what truly mattered to them. This approach ensured the research stayed grounded and user-driven from the very beginning.
- Target Audience: EDM enthusiasts
- Age: 18 - 46
- Gender: 50% female, 50% male
- Participant Breakdown: 10 EDM listener and 5 EDM producers
- Users value recommendations from major streaming platforms but seek a tailored, EDM-exclusive experience.
- Users want a seamless way to discover live events, purchase tickets, and view event details—like name, location, lineup, and tips—without leaving the app.
- Users face difficulties when friends share playlists from different music apps, as they cannot listen directly.
- Users enjoy learning about artists and their music but find existing apps lacking in detailed information, forcing them to rely on external sources like Google.
- Users wish to directly send music or playlists to friends, add collaborators, discuss music within the app.
- Music producers struggle to get a quick overview of all their uploads and access detailed analytics for each one on mobile apps.
User Persona
Daniel has a deep passion for EDM and enjoys exploring its wide variety of sub-genres. He is particularly fascinated by the creative process behind the music and loves sharing his discoveries with friends. Daniel and his friends often create and share music playlists but find it challenging to collaborate because they use different apps. He also struggles with inconsistent or missing genre information in music platforms.
- Playlists shared across apps require downloading additional platforms or subscribing to listen, which disrupts the user experience.
- Although SoundCloud allows music sharing with friends within app, it lacks a centralized feature to combine all his needs, such as genre details, playlist sharing, and social interactions.
- Many music apps provide broad or missing genre classifications, making it hard for Daniel to explore niche sub-genres like Psytrance or Experimental Bass.
- To easily share and transfer playlists across different music platforms, ensuring smooth collaboration with friends.
- To share and discuss music directly within the app, fostering a sense of community.
- To have detailed genre and sub-genre information for every track he listens to
Zoe’s passion for EDM began at 18, and she has a particular love for Trance music. Two years ago, she started producing her own Trance tracks and sharing them on SoundCloud. She enjoys sharing her creative process and the inspiration behind her music but struggles with tracking audience engagement. A frequent attendee of EDM events, Zoe keeps up with her favorite artists on social media to find and purchase tickets for shows.
- SoundCloud lacks an engagement overview, forcing her to check each track individually and leave the app for deeper analysis, making it time-consuming to track her performance.
- She has to switch between multiple apps and websites to find event details or buy tickets, as existing platforms like Spotify offer incomplete or limited event information.
- To have an easy-to-use platform for tracking audience engagement, such as likes and comments, across all her uploaded tracks in one place.
- To find and purchase tickets for live EDM events without leaving the app.
- To stay updated on her favorite artists and upcoming shows in an integrated, user-friendly environment.
Scoping the Competition
After speaking with users, I turned to competitor research to better understand the landscape of existing solutions, market trends, and feature gaps. Guided by user insights, I began by analyzing EDM-specific music apps, only to find that very few exist—and those that do offer limited functionality. Broadening my scope, I explored mainstream music apps, focusing on critical areas such as content discovery, event integration, playlist management, onboarding, navigation, and overall design.
- Addressing User Needs: Evaluating how well these apps meet the specific challenges identified in user interviews.
- Feature and Design Assessment: Reviewing the strengths and limitations of their features and overall design.
Ideate
Guided by Research, Built for Users
Following my research, I brainstormed feature ideas tailored to user needs and competitor standards. After thorough consideration, I chose to make the app EDM-exclusive to provide an immersive experience. I outlined 21 features that address essential user needs, cover edge cases, and incorporate industry-standard features inspired by competitor analysis.
The Art of Structure
To ensure seamless navigation and usability, I crafted a comprehensive information architecture that defines its structure and navigation. Every element was carefully organized into a logical hierarchy to ensure a seamless and intuitive user experience.
- Home: Your personalized hub for discovering music and recommendations.
- Event: A go-to space for finding, exploring, and planning EDM events.
- Playlist: Effortless management of your favorite tracks and playlists.
- Chat: A dynamic space for connecting and sharing with friends and collaborators.
Prototype
Drafting the Design
Building Consistency, One Component at a Time
I established a design system based on Atomic Design methodology, featuring a dark background with white and gray text for clarity. The system includes typography, color guides, and modular components to ensure a cohesive look and feel across the app. To enhance the user experience, I integrated advanced features like variants, conditional variables, and overlays, making the design more dynamic and responsive. This streamlined the process design, improved overall operational efficiency, and ensured a cohesive user experience.
Polishing the Vision
These high-fidelity screens offer a preview of the prototype. To explore the complete interactive experience, visit the Full Prototype section.
Testing in Action: From Feedback to Fixes
To ensure the prototype truly resonated with users, I invited 5 participants to explore it and share their honest feedback. Their insights were invaluable, leading 6 key areas for improvement. I carefully analyzed their input and implemented targeted fixes to refine the user experience.
Where It All Comes Together
The prototype showcases user flows and interface design, so you may notice repeated content, such as the same image, song name, artist name, or event name, across multiple pages. This repetition occurs because shared UI components are used to illustrate various user flows. In the final product, dynamic, unique content will replace these placeholders once integrated with the back-end database.
Reflections
The Numbers Behind the Screens
What I Learned...
- Leveraging research to understand user Needs: Research is the key of understanding user needs, and it played a critical role to understand the frustrations and desires of EDM enthusiasts. This deep understanding guided the ideation process, helping to craft tailored features that address user pain points, enhance their music experience, and deliver an all-in-one solution for EDM fans.
- Adopting Atomic Design for efficiency and consistency: Implementing the atomic design method not only ensured visual consistency but also streamlined my workflow, making the design scalable and easier to adapt as the project evolved. Initially, I wasn’t utilizing a modular design system, and with a large number of pages, every element change required a significant amount of time to update across all pages. Later, I adopted the atomic design method, which organizes components into different hierarchical levels. This approach made my design process more efficient, as changes to a component automatically reflected throughout the app, saving time and maintaining consistency.
- Proactively addressing edge cases for Better UX: Addressing edge use cases ensures a smooth experience for all users. Anticipating that some tracks might not be automatically found during playlist imports, I added an option to edit track details, making the process more reliable and user-friendly. This taught me the value of anticipating challenges and providing flexible solutions to improve the overall user experience.