Adobe x createSC — Third Place Winner
Boppin is a music sharing community that aims to help music lovers continue to share and discover music with others in the post COVID-19 era.
Product design
User research
TIMELINE
March 2021 (2 days)
TOOLS
SKILLS
Adobe XD
TEAM
I had the opportunity to enter createSC, an annual designathon with over 100 teams of college students from across the U.S., with my talented teammates, Alexander Tang and William Han. Over the course of two days, we executed the entire design process, from initial brainstorms to a high-fidelity prototype.
We presented our product pitch deck to a panel of industry professionals and were overjoyed to place third in the competition.
Keep reading to see the results of our 48-hour grind sesh ↓
Background
The Challenge
The pandemic has fundamentally altered how we engage in social interactions. As we near the post-COVID era, how might we continue to share music experiences, discover new genres, and meet others who share our music taste in a safe yet interactive way?
In order to identify the target user base and pinpoint the need for our solution, we created a targeted survey and obtained the following key insights (N=31):
User research
81% of respondents reported that amongst their friends, only some or a few listen to the same music as them.
FINDING #1
FINDING #2
90% of respondents discover new music through friends.
67.7% of respondents reported that they would use an app that could connect them with others who share the same music taste.
FINDING #3
Takeaways
Many people feel that finding new music can be challenging, and this is especially true during COVID-19.
While digital events helped to continue sharing music, a major part of the experience was missing — meeting new people and sharing the good vibes with others.
A major way that people find new music is through interacting with others and exchanging songs and playlists.
We examined two concepts, Spotify Group Session and JQBX, to assess the quality of the current solutions and the improvements that can be made.
Comparative Analysis
Final Prototype
View a walkthrough of our final prototype below:
I developed a simple design system before creating high fidelity wireframes in order to keep everything consistent.
Design System
Reflection
Brainstorming paves the way for success.
My teammates and I spent more than half of the competition time discussing potential solutions, conducting user research, and planning each screen before beginning the wireframing process, which allowed us to easily execute our ideas in the end.
Seek advice but trust your instincts.
During our design review session, we were told that our app concept was useless. Rather than scrapping our idea, we administered a survey to see if people would be interested in the app. We ended up receiving overwhelmingly positive feedback, which gave us the assurance we needed to continue. We ended up becoming finalists and created a concept that was unique among several similar app concepts.