Album Sales Music Tracker

The Product

My app is about an Album Sales Tracker for music-listening/listeners where users are able to find, listen, and view music from various albums of different genres.

Project Duration

5 Months

Oct 2021 - Mar 2022

The Problem

Based on my user research, two of the most common problems users experience in a music-listening app are advertisements that cannot be skipped and heavy usage of explicit language (profanity) in certain genres of music.

The Goal

Design an app that helps people check album sales prices and the ability for them to listen to their music without interruptive advertisements. In addition, allowing users the ability to turn on/off explicit language (profanity) in certain songs.

My Role

UX Designer.

My Responsibilities

Throughout my time developing this app, I’ve been working with 2 other people on my design team.

The list of responsibilities included: Conducting interviews with participants, paper & digital wireframing, low-fidelity & high-fidelity prototyping, usability studies, research plans, personas, and problem & goal statements.

User Research: Summary

I conducted several interviews with participants and created both empathy maps and personas in order to understand my user group even more. I’m designing the app to address various user needs and also to gain a deeper understanding of the whole design development process. By doing this, I’m able to clearly see exactly the method in which a user takes in order to complete his/her intended tasks.

My main objectives since the beginning was to figure out a simple and convenient way for users to search and navigate through a music-streaming app, and to determine whether finding their preferred styles of music was an easy task to complete or not.

User Research: Pain Points

1) Explicit Language: Based on earlier interviews with users, many of them wished there was an option to turn off profanity in certain songs.

2) Unskippable Ads: During user research, some of my participants experienced advertisements that couldn’t be skipped while listening to music which can affect user experience.

3) Lack of Music Genres: During my usability study, some of my participants claimed that there weren’t enough options for music genres in the filtering menu. Going forward, my app will be updated with more variety of genres for users to choose from in order to increase accessibility.

4) Lack of Login Alternatives: Initially, my app’s sign-up and sign-in screen lacked different login alternatives. One of my participants suggested to implement ‘’Microsoft Outlook’’ as one of the methods.

After taking the time to sketch my app on paper and deciding what to add for each of the screens, I was able to ensure that the elements would also be implemented into the digital wireframes to address any user pain points that exist. Since the sketches, I’ve done lots of iteration towards it.

Following the paper wireframes, I continued to design my home screen based on the user feedback I collected from research findings.

The main goal of this screen was to make it intuitive for users. On this screen, users are able to control their music with the provided playback controls, as well as share the song with others across various different social media platforms.

After placing all of the digital wireframes together side-by-side, I created a low-fidelity prototype out of it. The main user flow that I added towards my app would allow people to navigate and interact with ease of use.

View the Prototype:

Album Sales Tracker App

There were two occasions in which I was required to conduct usability studies for my app. The findings gathered from round 1 helped guide me with the designing process, specifically transitioning from the creation of wireframes to mockups. The findings from round 2 helped to give me a better visual image of how the high-fidelity prototype would be designed and it also revealed aspects of the created mockups that needed refinement.

Round 1 Findings:

1) Implement a logout button on the profile screen.

2) Add a lyrics feature when a song is being played.

3) Users would've liked to see a dynamic background to increase the overall visual attractiveness of the app.

Round 2 Findings:

1) Users want a way to view their account settings from the profile screen.

2) Users would’ve liked to have more category options, like geographical or country/region-specific categories.

3) Users should have the ability to hide their activity using a privacy feature.

Initially, users were confused as to what the shapes and lines meant on my app screens. After careful iteration and refinements, the screen now allows users to have more interaction with it.

The final high-fidelity prototype allows users to easily navigate and interact through the app without struggles, which provides a cleaner user flow.

View the Prototype:

Album Sales Tracker App

1) I’ve added a microphone icon into my app to help users who are disabled or have visual impairments. People who are unable to type fall into this category.

2) Users are able to change the language interface from the app’s settings menu, which will help them be able to navigate through the app easier and more conveniently.

3) In the filtering menu, users are able to remove explicit language from songs. This is especially useful if certain people are sensitive to profanity in music.

Impact: I believe my Album Sales Tracker App had a significant impact on my targeted users. Throughout the design and research process, I was able to notice that my users were engaged with my app’s interface and were very satisfied by its ease of use. Some of my users mentioned to me that they saw potential in my app becoming successful, which was very nice to hear.

What I Learned: Since the start of my design process, I learned that creating paper wireframes of my idea was absolutely necessary before continuing onto the next step. The usability studies that I conducted helped me a lot with gaining useful and honest feedback from my participants, and it also taught me to avoid making my own assumptions as a designer.

1) Conduct more usability studies next time to determine whether any issues related to the app needs any improvement or refinement.

2) Conduct further user research to figure out if user needs are met or fulfilled.

3) Use feedback gathered from low-fidelity & high-fidelity usability studies, and implement those into my app.