Mobile App
Folklore is an app for musicians who create folk music. The app displays information about the artist and details on their songs across all streaming platforms. It also includes a community page for further outreach.
User research, wireframing, prototyping, UI design
Project Duration
September 2022 - February 2023
The Problem: Displaying information usually consists of heavy amounts of text. The problem is too much text can cause fatigue for the user.
The Goal: To counteract the problem of heavy amounts of text, the goal is to minimize text and visualize it with various types of images or graphics. i.e graphs, icons, photos, color, saturation.
Research for this app consisted of two phases. The first usability study focused on how the overall layout of the app felt like to a user. This was a lo-fi prototype to see how a user interacts with various types of information presented on the screen. The second usability study was a high-fi prototype I found that there was too much text in some pages that made it feel crowded.
On pages “World Map” and “Community”, participants stated that there were too much text. Moving forward I can figure out a way to maybe implement a “more info” button to streamline information.
There was a confusion whether this app was for listeners or artists. One way to fix this would be to either remove some features. Another would be to explicitly state on the app explaining the creator-focused features.
Some participants found the information and screens to be overstimulating. They were overwhelmed with too much at once. To fix this issue I could put to use more sections and grouping of items to make it easier to follow when interacting.
This is more towards the research questions. Participants had trouble understanding questions which led to frustration and having to restate questions everytime. In the future I will keep in mind that participants don’t know the app as closely as I do.
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About Joseph:
Joseph is an immigrant to the USA from Kenya. He is studying music and has a specific interest in folk music. He plans on joining a folk band in the future and making his own music. He’s taking a course on the business side of music and marketing. Joseph is looking for something that can help track album sales of not just what would be his album sales, but can show the sales of other artists in folk music as well.
Problem statement:
Joseph is a remote student studying folk music who needs easy access to a list of album sales in folk music because He is both interested in them as well as needs it for a semester long project.
Age: 20
Education: Currently pursuing undergraduate degree
Hometown: Nairobi, Kenya
Family: Single, lives with family
Occupation: Remote student
Goals:
Clear & precise information displayed,
Has a list of folk artists
Frustrations:
Very niche genre,
Other sales trackers don’t show wide info,
Can’t find small folk artists
A. Download app and signup
B. Navigate to information about the album and/or song
A. See what's new on home page
B. Look for interesting movies
A. Pick a movie that might look interesting
B. Find more information about that movie
C. Watch the movie trailer
A. Pick a movie
B. Choose a date
C. Pick a time to watch the movie
A. Confirm movie and time
B. Choose how many tickets to purchase and what type
C. Input information on billing and card information
D. Confirm purchase
Calm
Interested
Intrigued
Fascinated
Excited
Intrigued
Excited
Confused
Fascinated
Happy
Helpful
Nervous
It gets confusing to know which screen is being navigated to
Search bar or filter for refined search
Link to external app for full songs
Social media links for easy app transitions
built-in chat feature
While going through the sketches it became clear that I wanted to use a carousel of some sort and a nav bar at the bottom. The carousel provides ease of access to important sales information while the nav bar allows for convenience and a home base if the user gets lost on other screens.
<-- Left Image:
As initially thought of in the sketches, wireframes of a carousel and navigation bar are created. A graph is also included to visually represent trends in sales and streams. Grids are used to represent albums and songs to add a sense of familiarity to other music streaming apps.
*Carousel of total album sales information
*Navigation bar of three different types of screens
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Right Image: -->
I didn’t want the app to just be for data visualization, I wanted a way for artists to grow and connect with other like-minded people. The community page allows for users to have an exclusive connection when an account is created with Folklore.
*3 different tabs to slide through for increase in organization and grouping
*Artists profile image along with a description to increase discover and streams
The following button is a link to a Figma prototype.
(opens in new tab)
I go from the home screen to the album and song information screen. I then navigate to the World Map and Community screens.
With limited access to participants, some of the same participants were used for the first and second usability study. An unmoderated interview was conducted
Round 1 Findings
Round 2 Findings
Participants mentioned that there is too much text on the world map page. To consider this, I narrowed it down to just total streams in the specific country with a button to bring additional information about that country.
<-- Left Image: Before Usability Study
--> Right Image: After Usability Study
The following button is a link to a Figma high-fidelity prototype.
(opens in new tab)
I start from the home screen and move on to the album and song information screen. I then navigate to the World Map and Community screens.
1. I wanted there to be more than one way to navigate around the app so I created a nav bar, as well as a hamburger menu, so the user has multiple ways of moving around inside the app.
2. The use of text along with symbols makes it easier to familiarize what a button does and gives the user different ways to use the app. This could be useful with screen readers as well people who has trouble differentiating certain colors.
3. The color scheme I chose is colorblind friendly. It doesn’t use lots of conflicting colors and instead uses different shades of colors to show contrast. This allows for app to still be visible even when filters like monochrome is applied.
Impact:
The designs in FolkLore are similar to Spotify which I found participants reacted well to. It really gives a sense of familiarity which allows for easier skill transfer.
What I Learned:
While creating this project, I found out that the hardest part for me was creating valuable interview questions. I think the question would really help me with my designs but when I ask the participants, it kind of seems like useless or obvious information. I really found that the right interview questions can make or break the entire usability study.
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