Bop Swap
Music Sharing Platform
I have always had a passion for music. Throughout my life I have seen its power to motivate, connect people, and hold strong ties to fond memories. In recent years I have been able to contribute to the creative field of music by creating album art for friends. I found that I really enjoy the process of expressing a musician's ideas visually and loved how my work impacted the music listening experience by creating this visual identity for a song. With the opportunity to pursue a school sponsored passion project through my senior thesis, I knew I wanted to continue this pursuit to enhance people’s music listening experience. My studies’ emphasis on user experience presented a unique opportunity to take what I had learned and create a digital interface to solve a problem in this space.
The problem
Defining the problem
Around the same time as I was starting this project, I saw people’s desire to share music with Spotify Wrapped posts (posts created by Spotify for users to share their years listening trends on social media). Within days of Spotify sharing these stats, the wrapped posts flooded Snapchat and Instagram feeds across the world. It was clear that people enjoyed sharing their music, however there was also pushback against the volume and repetitiveness of these posts (Fomnia et al.). There were large scale complaints that social media goers did not care to see everyones top songs from the year. I found it interesting that despite peoples’ desire to share their music it simply wasn’t welcome on mainstream social media outside of this multi-day binge of music sharing.
Initial Survey
Understanding music sharing
In exploring this issue, I wanted to understand how people listen to and share music. To do so, I created a Qualtrics survey and targeted social media users by distributing it on my instagram and snapchat stories, receiving a sizable turnout of 45 responses. The respondents were about 66% male and an average of 20 years old. From this group I found the key take-away of the survey was that people do enjoy sharing music. The primary way people find music is through friends and 82% of respondents liked seeing others post if they shared a common taste in music. Despite the results showing participants' positive attitude around sharing music on social media, the most common response regarding frequency of sharing music indicated a large portion of respondents had never shared music on their social media.
Results
Understanding music sharing
From this group I found the key take-away of the survey was that people do enjoy sharing music. The primary way people find music is through friends and 82% of respondents liked seeing others post if they shared a common taste in music. Despite the results showing participants' positive attitude around sharing music on social media, the most common response regarding frequency of sharing music indicated a large portion of respondents had never shared music on their social media.
Focus Group
Digging into user needs
To explore these needs, I put together a list of questions on these topics and gathered a focus group of 6 people to discuss them. The goal here was to encourage sharing in a conversational setting, allowing users to think collaboratively. I found that most of the users' favorite features on their music streaming platforms allowed social and collaborative engagement (including shared playlists and group listening settings), allowing them to enjoy music with others. I also noted that similarly, participants liked social media because of its power to connect people. On the flip side, complaints about social media included the lack of authenticity perpetuated by social statistics (such as likes and follower count) as well as social expectations to post, reply, and keep streaks (days of consecutive communication between two people).
Competitive Analysis
Considering similar products
Before taking on concrete ideation and prototyping for the app, I wanted to conduct a competitive analysis to see if there were any current or past platforms like this. I found a few that did similar things (including My Space, Song Shift, and BopDrop), however none met all the needs I gathered from users in my research.
Defining the Solution
Defining so I could start designing
After getting to know potential users through the initial survey, hearing their voice directly though the focus group, and looking elsewhere in the industry for inspiration, I felt comfortable planning specific project goals and laying out my vision for the app.I needed to define specific pages and content to include, plan a sitemap to determine the information architecture of the app, and start designing a visual prototype of what the app should look like.
Project Timeline
What needs to be done by when?
At this point I had 3 months until I had to deliver these to the stakeholders so I wrote up a timeline to plan the progress of this project.I was able to stick to this project schedule pretty closely, however there were times that I would get really passionate about a design and end up spending more time on an early stage than initially intended, taking it farther than I originally planned for that given timeframe. While this resulted in the expression of some good ideas, it threatened the timeline of other project goals and occasionally resulted in having to backtrack when ideas were refined or adjusted in future steps of the project.
Site map and Sketches
Action Items and Recommendations
My original plan for the information architecture of the site included 4 nav items: the user feed, the profile page, the messages screen, and the explore page. This largely reflected the site plan in my final product; however I ended up scrapping the explore page, making the decision to keep the app more personal (more about sharing music with people you know). The initial wireframes reflected the 4 main pages accessible in the nav bar. I used icons as the navigation on a sticky horizontal bar that spanned the bottom of the page to allow the user to easily switch between pages at any point in their experience.
Action Items
Action Items and Recommendations
After several rounds of iteration and refinement, I created the final prototype of BopSwap, a music sharing social media app. The app allows users to share or request music with comments or one of three types of posts: the music share, the song request, or the memory post.
User Feed
Where music is shared with these features
- Music Shares- Music shares are just what they sound like, posts that share a playlist, song, or album.
- Song Requests- Again, as the name implies, these are requests for song suggestions to fit with a tagged playlist or song type defined by at least three tracks which are shown in the card-like design.
- Memories- These are posts that allow a user to share a moment that reminds them of a song.
- Comments- Users can comment on posts with written responses that can include their own song tags if they want to refer to a different song. These tags will appear in the tagged music section.
Content and playlist Pages
The content behind a users profile
Users are taken to a specific content page if a section is expanded on a profile page by clicking “view all”. While the types of posts on these pages will differ, the basic layout of each is the same. The page opens with a tab that allows users to filter the content down by genre, artist, or song so they can quickly find the music that matches their taste. If the user chooses to look at one of the playlists, they are taken to a new page for the specific playlist. Beyond filters these pages included interactions that allow music to be saved, added to a playlist, or opened in their streaming platform.
Chat and Video
Connecting directly with other users
This section of the app, linked by the chat bubble in the bottom nav bar, appears like a standard SMS page. All songs sent in messages will be populated in the “Sent to me” playlist on a weekly basis. The final feature of this section is video share, offering users the face to face connection and reactions to music sharing. Video share (linked by the video camera icon in the top right of the messages page) brings the music sharing process to life by offering video chat and shared viewing of youtube videos so friends can show each other songs and see their reactions in real time!
PrOfiLe page
Looking at a users music
These pages are linked by the search feature (to view others’ profiles) or a user's profile picture in the top right of the navigation bar (to view one’s own profile). The top of each user's page has a background of album art tiles with their profile picture and bio accompanied by a link to their “listeners” and “listening to”. Directly below this is a list of tags summarizing the top genres a user listens to, allowing users to quickly get a feel for the compatibility of their music tastes. A profile page is then populated with three sections showing off their favorited posts (indicated by a star) for each of the three post types mentioned above, with links to view all.
Reflections
Looking back at goals and delivery
Bop Swap’s range of features and group powered music discovery processes effectively address the desire for a space to share music, the never-ending search for new music by avid listeners, and the potential for deep connections forged in a creative space. Its simple appearance and straightforward functionality makes it accessible to a range of users from audiophiles, to the casual pop music listener. Seeing this platform come together and sharing it out with peers and mentors has been an extremely fulfilling process. The original idea was born out of a project I did for a web design class and it has since blossomed into a thorough case study and polished interface. I am excited to see where Bop Swap will go next and look forward to seeing music sharing transform in coming years!
