Given the shared affinity of all team members towards singing in their limited free time, the team had an abstract lived understanding of the market. However, to solidify the direction and back up the assumptions about the market space, a survey and some interviews were conducted to gauge the mass interest and inclination.
Survey Stats
To arrive in our product space, an extensive analysis of the customer was conducted. In this case, singers of all varieties were targeted, and they were sent a survey to collect data about demographics and their experiences as a singer.
The questions of the survey can be accessed by clicking the link below:
The form received 40 responses in total, which produced rich data to interpret in our analysis. While circulating the survey invite, the aim was to capture the views and identities of select target groups, including people actively involved in choir and acapella groups, and people who simply enjoyed singing to de-stress from their otherwise busy lives.
To start, information about age, gender, and living situation was gathered to characterize our target customer. Unfortunately, there was age-related selection bias since the population was restricted to people who were directly accessible. Since other college students would likely be the ones to answer this survey, 82.5% of the participants were between the ages of 18 and 24. Additionally, 75% of the participants identified as female.
Finally, to find out more information about their living situation, we asked participants to share the number of people they lived with. The data is shown below.
Further information was gathered regarding interest and confidence in singing of the participants, which gave context to their answers about how comfortable they are with others hearing them practice. 75% of participants answered '3' or higher, indicating that a majority of the participants experienced some discomfort when others hear them sing.
Next, participants were asked at which locations they sang, and 97.5% responded that they did so at home. Whether in public or private, when asking singers about what hinders them from singing, the two biggest factors were the lack of privacy and anxiety.
Finally, to learn more about the wants of singers, a couple more features were explored, such as being able to record and playback their singing. However, the only highly rated feature was the ability to hear themselves sing, as shown below.
Survey Analysis
The results of the survey showed that the overwhelming majority of people prefer to sing in the comfort of their abode, which should be a private place. However, the issue that prevented people from practicing here was ironically the lack of privacy. For example, at home, 97.5% of participants lived with at least 1 roommate; thin walls are not enough to stop their voice from being heard.
Ergo, since 75% of customers are not fully comfortable when other people hear them sing, there is a very clear need for singers to be able to have privacy within the familiarity of their own living space. Many of the participants said they were anxious about how they sounded, and were conscious about their voice, but they still preferred to sing at home anyways.
This also implicitly implies that there is a need for comfortability when singing. When exploring the solution space, it is important not to infringe upon comfort.
The survey was able to deduce some other features that were important for a singer to be able to practice, the leading one being the ability to hear yourself sing. This indicates a need for live monitoring capabilities, which cannot be sacrificed for the implementation of privacy.
Interviews
Following the survey, a couple of the participants were willing to share more via an interview, where they were able to give further insight into their responses. These interviewees were gotten by adding a question at the end of our survey gauging if people were willing to share more in an interview format. Two of them were selected.
We chose to employ interviews because this allows us to gain further insight as to why the customer answered the way they did. Rather than just analyzing their survey questions, a live interview allowed us to instantly ask follow-up questions for any clarity needed. The interview also brought up other concerns we failed to factor into our initial survey questions. For example, one interview question asked the subject to describe their 'ideal' singing space, allowing us to mentally illustrate what the consumer needs in a product, something a survey can't provide in great detail.
The team recruited interview participants who identified as amateurs but still were at the two different ends of the spectrum, to be able to capture a more thorough representation of the target audience. Out of the two interviewees, one was a member of a choir while the other was an individual who enjoyed singing in her free time to relax and de-stress.
A singular interview protocol outline was curated to capture the overarching questions, with enough room for specific follow-up questions to be identified by the interviewer.
Interview Analysis
One interviewee brought up a new concern associated with people hearing him sing; he was worried about others thinking he was showing off. This was something we never took into thought, we always assumed the only negative emotion associated with singing was the feeling of embarrassment.
The other interviewee brought up some essential concerns regarding socioeconomic accessibility, such as the money required to sign up for private singing lessons to book a soundproof practice room. This insight made us narrow in our focus on ensuring accessibility was a main focus in creating this product.
Overall, the interview solidified our assumptions made towards singers and what they are currently lacking when it comes to practising their singing abilities. This confidence allowed us to move forward in defining what our product needs to be successful.