Spotify GigKick UI Concept
The purpose of this project was to form a design team to create a prototype for a new interface feature. The feature could be part of an existing real-world product and should allow the user to complete a specific goal.
Team: Barbara Bugalska (UX, Usability Testing), Marco Novara (Usability Testing, Photography / Video), Martin Knight (Concept, Apple Watch UI, Visual Design), Lewis Murphy (Concept, iPhone UI, Product Video / Animation)
Localised Event Notification
We explored the concept of an event notification feature based on your current location. When close to a venue, or visiting a new city, the "app" could inform you of who was playing near by. Our aim was to take the pain out of searching for tickets to events and simplify the gig discovery process.
The idea was later refined to connect with an existing music service where your music preferences would already be stored. We chose the popular service Spotify as it did not already have this feature.
With simplicity and unobstrusive technology in mind, we proposed a concept for the Apple Watch. The limited screen real estate necessitated a stripped back approach, while the haptic responses on the wrist invited a different way of thinking about user interface and notifications.
The Apple Watch is ideal for subtle notifications but could only offer a stripped down version of the "full" app, so we looked at the task flow on the paired iPhone to complete the process.
Usability Testing
With an initial set of screens designed we conducted some guerilla testing to assess the usability of the application interface design. In particular to verify the idea of the 'Gigkick’ app and get users design feedback and suggestions to improve the product.
Based on gathered feedback we found out some design changes were required to improve our product.
Conclusion
Most of the participants found the ‘Gigkick’ feature for Spotify to be understandable and easy to use. All were interested in getting notifications about their favourite artists and declared they would liked to receive updates about live events in their area.
In general participants admired the clean layout, tasteful design, and colour choice. However, simplicity was the most liked characteristic of the product. All of the users found the product to be following the latest trends in technology. Based on the participant's suggestions, a number of changes have been implemented to improve the user experience.
