Research

User Survey:

I began with a user survey that was sent out by email. I had over 20 responses and the following results were gathered:

- 94.4% of participants used cloud storage to upload content.

- 53.6% said collaboration was “Important.”

- 72.2% said content organization was “Very Important.”

- 83.3% said they use both the computer and mobile to access their storage.

- 100% said they platform of choice was a “Desktop Computer.”

Competitive Analysis:

To get an idea of what some similar applications were doing well and not so well, I did a SWOT analysis on three storage applications. These include Evernote, Flickr, and Dropbox. Knowing what similar companies were doing helped shape the scope of this project and provided a great base to begin finding the path forward for TuneCan.

Evernote

• Strengths:

• + Great Organization
• + Note-taking capabilities
• + Images and PDFs can be uploaded
• + Can be used on a wide range of devices

• Weaknesses:

• - No version control
• - No simultaneous user collaboration
• - Free version is limited
• - Complex user interface

• Opportunities:

• • Business becoming more sustainable
• • Teams need collaboration
• • Decrease payment cost for premium
• • Increase organizational abilities

• Threats:

• • Not everyone has a device to access application
• • Everyone in business needs a company issued device
• • Flooded market
• • Steep learning curve

Flickr

• Strengths:

• + Great for porfolios
• + Image editing in application
• + Private and public storage
• + Can be embeded into blogs and websites

• Weaknesses:

• - Switched ownership in recent years
• - Premium account and free accounts change often
• - Limited to 1000 photos
• - Limited to photos and videos

• Opportunities:

• • New ownership could lead to new changes
• • Broaden uploading capabilities
• • Create ways for people to monetize their content
• • Increase organizational abilities

• Threats:

• • Other competing companies
• • Expensive premium prices
• • No way for creators to make money

Dropbox

• Strengths:

• + 2GB of free storage
• + Payment plans for businesses
• + Dropbox paper is a nice addition
• + Password protected sharing capabilities

• Weaknesses:

• - More focused on documents and files
• - Not as collaborative as other platforms
• - Dropbox paper is limited
• - Google Drive offers more space

• Opportunities:

• • Expansion of Dropbox Paper
• • Growing demand for cloud storage applications
• • Collaboration is becoming ever more important

• Threats:

• • Overcrowded market
• • Google Drive has more applications
• • Niche cloud storage applications

Personas:

Three user personas were created to define the scope of this project. Due to TuneCan being an application based on musicals artists and producers there were only three distinct users.

Mich B.

"As someone involved in the local music community, I would love a place to hear what they have been working on"

Age: 26 / Location: Rochester, NY

Goals:

• A platform to share her music with her friends and family
• A platform to hear and receive other people's music
• Ability to record short voice memos to record jingles on the road

Frustrations:

• Other platforms are too complicated and have too many options
• Needs access to content online and offline to share her music with anyone
• Storage limitations and expensive premium membership options

Beth H.

"My son is always on the road. Being able to hear his new music and share it with friends is a way for us to connect. "

Age: 63 / Location: Austin, TX

Goals:

• Easy interface to find her sons songs
• Abilty to receive song components from her son, and a way to share with her friends
• Ability to download song components for use offline

Frustrations:

• Owning an older computer she gets frustrated by load times
• Gets overwhelmed by busy applications that have too many features

Daniel J.

"Always being on the road and producing music is tiring. Having one place to store my componets would be beneficial"

Age: 30 / Location: Brooklyn, NY

Goals:

• A platform to store all his current songs for easy access
• A way to organize his song components for easy song editing
• Ability to store music public and privately

Frustrations:

• Other platforms are more directed towards file storage
• Hard to share song components with other musicians
• Other sites do not contain the level of organization that he requires

Visual Design

Branding

Once the application felt like it was coming alive, branding became a massive part of the final solution. Unfortunately, people judge books by their cover which is why TuneCan had to appeal to all musicians. It had to look modern, simple and stylish.

Multiple mood boards were created to get different ideas of what TuneCan could be. After many hours of contemplation a more serious, dark look was chosen. I did this for multiple reasons. One, musical artists and producers spend hours behind a computer screen when not recording. This is to mix, edit, and rearrange their musical pieces. I did not want to cause eye strain during these long hours. Lastly, this application is meant to help improve the workflow of artists. This is a professional application, and I wanted it to look that way.

Color Palette:

A fun, yet professional color palette was chosen. I wanted to give the feeling of creativity while also coming off as a brand that should be taken seriously. The bright yet give the sense enthusiasm and happiness, while the darker colors give it the sense of elegance.

Typography:

• • Brand Typeface - Poppins
• • Complimentary Typeface - Muli

These typefaces were used because they look fun, are easy to read, and truly express the voice of TuneCan.

Logo Design and Process

I started with some basic sketches to determine the route I wanted to take. Out of the few pages of sketches I felt that the toucan with the quarter note best fit the feeling of TuneCan.

With the drawing picked out I went ahead and created it in Adobe Illustrator. The first round of the design was a great place to start but more work needed to be done. From the initial design, I was able to refine my logo by adding a heavier stroke, and adding some nice colors to compliment the brand.

To make the logo appealing to the eye,I decided to create this logo using the fibonacci sequence. I was able to create perfect curves that are all in proportion to one another and used the shape builder tool to merge and dissect the pieces I did not want. Lastly, I had to increase the stroke on the final design. The stroke was too thin and looked off compared to the size of the body of the toucan.

This logo represents the brand in many ways. The body of the Toucan is in the shape of a quarter note and the Toucan in general looks fun and inviting. In addition, it is easily recognizable which will help increase brand recognition.

Wireframes:

Once branding was complete it was finally time to create some mockups. I started by drawing out some basic sketches of what I thought the layout would look like.

With these sketches I was able to create a working prototype using Figma and InVision. These screens were very basic and contained general information.

User Testing Round 1:

User testing was extremely helpful in coming to the final design of TuneCan. Users were asked what they thought the website was for, to create an account, organize content, share content, and sign out. From these rounds of testing a few things were brought to my attention:

1. 1) My content strategy needed work. The site was too vague and it left users feeling confused.
2. 2) The uploading of song components needed work. Users were getting confused uploading their content to the application.
3. 3) Potential issues with selecting more than one song file at once.

This feedback was helpful and used to create the high fidelity mockups.

High Fidelity Mockups:

With the feedback from the initial round of testing, the high fidelity mockups were made. Although the feel of the site did not change, certain components and user flows were updated for better performance. I did a complete overhaul of the content strategy. Users were getting confused of the sites purpose and I really tried to articulate the purpose of the site this time around. I reworked the song selection, and content uploading by using contextual UX.

All Figma Mockups

Preference Testing:

In between the creation of high fidelity mockups and more user tests I performed some preference testing on screens. I tested to see how people responded to shape changes, where a search bar should go on mobile, and if modal windows were effective in the design.

(65%)

VS

(35%)

(43%)

VS

(57%)

High Fidelity Mockup Testing:

As in the initial mockups, users were tasked with completing specific tasks while thinking out loud. The following tasks were:

• 1) Sign up for an account
• 2) Upload a song components
• 3) Organize a piece of content
• 4) Share an album with a friend

This round went much better than the original. Each user tested found errors in my design that I was able to fix prior to the next round of testing. This ranged from simple grammatical issues, to issues where content was only able to be uploaded from the main screen. These final rounds of user testing truly helped make TuneCan a solid product.

Below are some of the changes made to the final design. In the first case, the addition of an "Other" option was added. People may have unique instrument components that are not your standard guitar, drums, bass, and vocals. There had to be options for other instruments.

Secondly, adding a new song to an album was causing confusion for users. I found that creating a modal window instead of a side menu bar helped users complete the task with less confusion.