New DJ Feature for SoundCloud

Co-creators: Cherell Lynes, Michael Crawley & Zhenjie Cai

Timescale: 2 weeks

 

Brief

Group project for a team of four on a new feature for SoundCloud: an online, real-time DJ collaboration room that allowed listeners to join in on gigs in real-time. 

 

TOOLS USED: 

  • Pen and paper // Excel 
  • Illustrator // Omnigraffle 
  • Sketch // Marvel 
  • Keynote // Skype
Final prototype for listeners' view of the collaboration

Final prototype for listeners' view of the collaboration

 

METHODS AND PROCESSES FOLLOWED:

We followed the double diamond design process [discover, define, develop and deliver], applying lean / agile principles:

  • Discovery: User interviews, survey, competitive analysis, task analysis
  • Define: Personas, scenarios, opportunity, features prioritisation, user journey, user flows
  • Develop: Design studio, developing sketches, card sorting, wireframes, paper and high fidelity prototypes, testing and iterations
  • Deliver: Working prototype, presentation and recommendations

User research

In order to really get to understand our audience’s needs, we looked at competitors and did some competitor analysis, conducted surveys to identify user behaviours and identify trends, as well as in-depth interviews to hear how they go about watching and taking part in online collaborations currently available to them now. In addition, we did a contextual enquiry to actually see and experience how both DJs and listeners currently enjoy live collaborations online. 

PERSONAS

Once we had a good understanding of the typical SoundCloud user, we created three archtypes to reflect the findings - these became our professional DJ Jaz, our listener Gabriella and our listener-DJ hybrid Steve.

We looked into what their day to day lives would look like, what they would want and expect from this platform and how we can enhance there Soundcloud experience with our new collaboration feature. Through looking at our user research findings we felt it would be most relevant to take forward our persona Steve due to the majority of SoundCloud's users reflecting the bahaviours his persona displayed.

USER JOURNEY

Steve's experience in a user journey

Steve's experience in a user journey

Hypothesis

From there, we hypothesised that our new Soundcloud feature will enable Steve to collaborate with other artists in real time, getting listener and peer feedback with his broadcasts, improving his craft and enhancing his profile. This will also lead to an increase in Soundcloud’s marketshare, appealing to a wider audience.

Design Studio and Paper Prototyping

Now that we knew what features and requirements Steve wanted from the new feature we started Design Studios to generate different design solutions to how this feature could work for Steve, these were developed and tested through a paper prototype.

 

 

 



Wireframes, clickable prototypes, testing & iterating

After testing, we did our first iteration of the design then created a clickable wireframe to test. The iterations after tests show the transformation between designs and where alterations were made to make the feature more user friendly.

responsive

Great for listeners on the go

Great for listeners on the go

NEXT STEPS

In our next steps we want to explore audio function for DJs to communicate as user research has said this would be helpful but over live music it would be hard to find the balance of audio online. In addition, SoundCloud should work alongside a DJ production software company to offer a complete packaged experience, for the beginner as well as the more practiced DJ.