END-TO-END MOBILE APP

The all-in-one project management tool helping indie bands and artists more efficiently self-manage and promote.

VIEW PROTOTYPE

Project Type

End-to-end mobile application
(student project)

My Roles

UX Research, Strategy & Design; Branding; UI Design; Prototyping

My Team

Design boot camp peers and mentor

Tools Used

Figma; ChatGPT

Final Result

In this case study, I'll show you how I designed a research-informed, prototype-tested project management mobile app that helps bands more effectively self-manage and promote, so they can build their income and grow their business.

But it didn't happen in a straight line.

Design Thinking Process

Since this design challenge was an end-to-end app, I knew I would need a solid framework to guide me through the process of clearly defining a problem to solve, then finding and testing the right solutions.

Define

Research Synthesis: Affinity Mapping Persona

POV/HMW

Ideate

Ideation

Feature Map

Sketches

Architecture

Prototype

Wireframes

UI/Branding

Interactive Prototype

Test

Usability Testing

Iteration/Revision

Empathize

Project Brief

Competitive Analysis

User Research

Project Background

🤔 Reflecting on my own early experiences as an indie music artist, I often struggled - and saw others around me struggling - with marketing ourselves - our businesses! As creative types, we spend hours a day honing our craft, while marketing and promotion remain a dark, scary hole. 🕳️

I knew there would be problems to solve in this area, and I also know that effective fan engagement and promotion are crucial to a band's success.

Initial Focus:

Artist-fan engagement, marketing, and management

Fan-artist & fan-fan community engagement

Research Plan

I set out to verify that there existed a need and a desire among the independent artist community (who market their content directly to consumers) for a private platform that helps bands and solo artists effectively engage with and promote to their fans.

What other products were out there?

For examples of band/artist D2C (direct to consumer) apps or products and ideas of how I could improve existing efforts to solve problems in this space, I needed to do a competitive analysis.

What problems could I solve?

In order to identify key problems to solve in the band-fan engagement process, I would need to interview two different user groups: bands and fans.

Business Goals

Learn more about bands' needs, pain points, and experiences with regard to artist-fan engagement, marketing, and relationship management

Consumer Goals

Learn more about fan groups' needs, pain points, and experiences with regard to the "fan" experience, artist-fan and fan-fan engagement

Assumptions

Musicians want to make a living through music.

Just like everybody else, bands want to be compensated for goods and services they provide.

They would engage with fans through an app.

Bands/artists would find value in engaging with their fans through a private platform app and would do so consistently.

They subsist on fan support.

Fan support (resulting in sales) is key to most independent artists' ability to earn money.

Fans would engage with bands through an app.

Regardless of their current methods, fans will want to engage with their favorite bands through an app.

They would use an app to monetize.

Bands would use an app as a primary platform to build revenue from their products and services.

Social media sucks.

Both bands and fans want a private, secure alternative to social media as a platform for engagement.

Reseach Pln

Competitive Analysis

I found a few - though not many - D2C artist-fan engagement platforms.

Other than Instagram, the platforms I did find were either geared toward mid-to-large-tier artists (TopFan and With the Band, requiring 150k fans minimum) or were weaning in popularity, such as ReverbNation.

Competitive Analysis Takeaways

There are few private D2C platforms for independent artists.

White label promotion & engagement apps are inaccessible to most small DIY artists.

Social media is the ubiquitous "band-aid" for fan engagement.

User Research

Looking at this as a potential D2C (direct to consumer) product, I conducted interviews with 4 musicians and 4 fans.

I organized the feedback using an affinity map for each user group.

Interview Takeaways

Artists had a lot of shared pain points.

Marketing/Promotion (lack of knowledge, time, and/or funds to do it)
Difficulty generating income, largely due to changes in the music industry
Time Management
Social Media Concerns

Fans were pretty content.

They enjoy feeling part of something "special" or bigger
They love the music
They are excited by the live event atmosphere / culture
They enjoy easy access to streaming music

Social media was an issue everybody has learned to live with.

All artists are "invested" in their social media lists and use it as their primary means of fan engagement
Most artists grudgingly use it, although they're not sure of an alternative and don't know how to use it to monetize
Fans use social media for news and to connect
Fans had a few concerns about social media but it was more about the lack of forum moderation / the few "idiots" who are out there

A New Focus

The interview findings were clear: since fans I interviewed had few real, tangible pain points, the greater opportunity seemed to lie in a product serving the many needs and pain points of independent bands and musicians.

Fans

Bands

I'm not great at self-promotion and I can't afford a manager, but I don't have time to learn all the hacks.

Sometimes on the day of a performance I’m horrified to realize I never sent an email to fans to promote it. I need some kind of plan.

Streaming services have killed music sales for smaller artists. We need creative solutions for generating income or we won’t be able to survive.

Personas

Taking findings and insights from the research, I reassembled the data into two personas that were representative of characteristics of all four users interviewed. This set of artifacts helped keep the humans I was designing for front and center.

The personas highlight:

Pain Points (what are their struggles/areas of opportunity?)
Behaviors (what does the user do on a daily basis and how might the product fit?)
Jobs To Be Done (which goals invite actionable solutions?)
Platforms/Apps Used (which services or apps are they likely to sync to the bandrise platform?)

Persona Takeaways

Organization and planning are key

Both users need help getting (and staying) organized and planning steps to success.

Need help with promotion and marketing

Making a living from music is important to both users. They need inspiration and guidance on effective solutions to financial success.

Needs to be easy to set up and manage

While one user is a little more tech-savvy than the other, they both would benefit from a simple, straightforward design - something that will provide immediate positive reinforcement and that won't require a huge learning curve.

Problem Finding

Crafting problem statements helped define the user and the specific problem on a more granular level, putting me in a goal-oriented mindset for feature ideation.

How might we help independent bands and musicians...

Feel empowered and excited about managing their business?

Create actionable, attainable goals?

Adopt easy, affordable practices for more effective organization, management, and promotion?

Discover and implement new ways to make money?

Ideation with AI

From the beginning of my discovery and research process, I used ChatGPT to find competitor apps and websites, enhance the ideation process, and inspire some content ideas.

I fact-checked any products or companies mentioned, and measured any feature ideas against the personas and data synthesis to be sure it would be a fit for my user base.

ChatGPT: is there a mobile app that helps bands build listeners?

ChatGPT: is there a mobile app that helps bands find management help?

ChatGPT: what are some examples of business goals?

ChatGPT: what should I include in a marketing and promotion app for bands?

ChatGPT: this is just for bands - not for fans.

ChatGPT: how can musicians get paid for their music?

Defining the Features

Between ChatGPT and my own brainstorming sessions, I had no lack of ideas for features. But to limit it to MVP (minimum viable product) launch, with research-backed, viable product features, I needed to vet each feature idea to determine:

How does it benefit the user?

Is it research-supported?

Which business or user goal does it meet?

Feature Priorities

Dashboard or mission control screen

Focus on event promotion

Ability to create projects and view details in one place

List of default action items

Professional solutions to help with distribution and revenue

Architecture

At this point, I needed to determine the hierarchy and some of the flows and interactions.

I used Figjam to map out the screen architecture, along with some key flows I wanted to eventually test with users.

Key Screens

Home Dashboard

Gives users a quick at-a-glance overview and can tap through to view more detail.

To Do List

Keep users organized and on task; prominently accessible via the home dashboard.

Add a New Project

Originally called "Deal." Also prominent on the home dashboard. Users add new project details and build their To Do List here.

Current Project List

This gives users an overview of all current projects

Adding a New Event

This is the first step in getting organized in setting and managing day-to-day activities.

The user has the flexibility to select from 3 project types or add a custom project type)
Projects can be confirmed or in the planning stages
Saving the project sets the user up to start working on a to-do list.
To minimize overwhelm, to-do lists are chunked into project stages

Building a To Do List

Stage 1: Event Booking

To promote an organized flow, completed action items trigger other project statuses or action items. For example, once the contract has been signed (moved to "done"), Stage 2 Promotion action items become available to the user.

bandrise provides users with a suggested list of action items to reduce cognitive load, save time, and inspire ideas
For organization and flexibility, items can be moved under a progress status
For added personalization, users can add customized action items

Stage 2: Event Promotion

The "Promotion" stage supports users in promoting their event by:

providing a list of action items related to event promotion
the option to link to the user's email or social accounts or affiliate links

Stage 3: Post-Event Follow-Up

After the event date passes, the Post-Event Follow-Up action items are available to users.
Users can select from a list of action items to help with post-event tasks, including thanking the organizer, welcoming new fans, sending an event summary email, etc.

I can attest from personal experience, this is an often forgotten step!

Sketches

Once I had an idea of the basic architecture and key flows, I needed to start adding some detail using pencil and paper. I find that hand-sketching helps the flow of ideas -- and it's easy to grab the sketches for references throughout the wireframing and interaction design process.

These are the first drafts for:

Home dashboard
Navigation menus
“Create a new project” flow
Settings
Solution Center
Project dashboard (originally called "deals")

💡 Once I started sketching the mobile screen detail, I realized my initial side-by-side To Do List "statuses" on the whiteboard architectural exploration wouldn't work for a mobile layout. These initial sketches still show the side-by-side layout, but I adjusted the layout in the wireframes.

To Do List “Stages;”

Drag & drop list item actions

Wireframes

The branding was still in process, so working in mid-fidelity allowed me to get started on the content and interactions while awaiting the final brand design. I did include a preliminary logo iteration, plus some iconography that ended up in the final high fidelity designs.