My First Project
RIVR
I love music and use music apps every day so for my first project I wanted to do something close to home. I've used multiple music apps over the years and have had issues with some that I wanted to try and fix. Additionally, I noticed that no current apps allows for artists to live stream in app and have their listeners interact with them. This is something that has been gaining popularity lately so I figured: why not combine them?
Personas
The first step I took was to create personas to illustrate both sides of users for this app. For the first persona I took some inspiration from myself (unfortunately not the looks). This persona depicts the "listener".
![Google UX Design Certificate - Persona [Template] (3).png](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d03658_a909cbc62ea94081aaa9ff58e085c136~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_490,h_276,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/d03658_a909cbc62ea94081aaa9ff58e085c136~mv2.png)
![Google UX Design Certificate - Persona [Template] (2).png](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d03658_27f5b033bed141b58ef01e05e1e8abbc~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_488,h_275,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/d03658_27f5b033bed141b58ef01e05e1e8abbc~mv2.png)
For the second persona I wanted to depict the "artist". This is the user who wants to stream music and create content to expand and grow as an artist.
Storyboards
(Close Up)
Next I made storyboards to illustrate use cases for the app. First I did a close up to give an idea of the main user flow, which is accessing the live stream and saving the live show as an album after.
Storyboards
(Big Picture)
After the close up I made one for big picture to show the more broad appeal of the app.
Paper Wireframes
The first step in the design I took was to put pen to paper and get my thoughts organized. This lets me see how the base design will look outside of my head so I can get an idea of how things will look and what wont work.
Digital Wireframe/LoFi Prototype
Next thing I did was make digital wireframes in Figma. This gave me a better idea of how the app would function and gave me a chance to test it with users. You can check it out for yourself here!
Mockup/HiFi Prototype
This is where things get fancy. Until now I referred to this project as "music streaming app" which doesn't exactly have a good ring to it. One day it hit me while I was on a walk: music streaming, a stream of water is a river, and the logo just snapped into my mind immediately.
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Additionally, through tests I found that users liked the navigation menu but wanted a back button to make navigation quicker on select screens, specifically the music player. The navigation menu felt clunky from here so I changed it to a back button. Additionally, by tapping the screen on the live player you can remove the chat and see the visualizer clearly.
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Something else I added that I've always wanted from a music streaming app was the ability to create folders for playlists.
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Click here to see how it works!
Style
The first thing I wanted was a dark theme because they are more pleasing to the eye and it gives the app a more sleek look. The next thing was the primary colour. I didn't like the colours being used by the competition. YouTube and Apple music use red, which is my favourite colour but also feels too harsh. Spotify uses green which isn't a particularly appealing colour and has negative connotations. Purple is a diverse colour; it can be sharp and powerful but also calming. it's also associated with royalty which gives it a regal feeling.
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Overall I wanted a sharp and modern style which is why I used thin and simple iconography. For typography I wanted that same sharp and simple look. From the logo to the colours the main feel I was going for was that of a luxury car. No matter who you are you just feel cool when you're in a luxury car and that's what I was aiming for with this app. Music is cool and should be treated that way.
RIVR Case Study
Throughout this project I created user journey maps and conducted usability tests to improve the project. Here you can see my case study that outlines many aspects of my journey creating this project.
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Thank you for your time and consideration :]