Sessions App
Art Direction: Cole Butterfield, Trevor Reese
Design: Trevor Reese
Project Summary
A social media app for musicians. Users seeking to play with other local artists can connect, share their music, and set up sessions to increase their network wherever they are. Swiping isn't just for dating apps.
ELEVATOR PITCH
A location based social media app for musicians to connect, share, and play with other local musicians.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Competitors include only one other social media app with the same functionality. The competitor's strengths include a large amount of options and functionalities within the app. Some examples are connecting spotify playlists, and sharing music through other 3rd party apps. Weaknesses of the competitor is the few amount of downloads and the community of users that they have built is small. On the other hand, Sessions is hyper-focused on the users experience in finding and connecting with other musicians.
USER INTERVIEWS
The goal for the user interviews was to attain a clear understanding of the user base and what they expect to see in a social media based app for musicians. Questions were catered to musicians; their goals, their social media habits, as well as social events and situations.
RESULTS
We received positive results as we analyzed the transcripts. We created infnity maps to lay out overall ideas that were unique to the sessions app. Users wanted to have an app that had similar functions of their favorite social media apps as well as a way to listen and learn more about other user profiles. Users also felt strongly that they would be comfortable meeting and sharing their location with new musicians in their local area.
PERSONA & SCENARIOS
1. Megan just got home from school. She finished her homework and has no desire to look at frog anatomy to prep herself with dissection day tomorrow in biology. She wants to spend her time playing music.
2. Megan opens up Sessions. She searches for someone who has the same style as she does and looks as people’s profiles around her.
3. She locates Banjo Steve and requests to start a session with him. He accepts and Megan is out the door.
1. It’s the weekend! Megan is stoked. She just got back from guitar center with some new strings for her guitar. She wants to start her own session and invite her friends.
2. Megan opens up Sessions. She goes to the menu and selects the sessions icon. She quickly plugs in all the information and invited her friends.
3. She confirms the session and starts to jam waiting for her friends to respond and come over to her house.
WIREFRAMES
USER TEST & SUMMARY
Some of the animations were confusing to users, it felt too busy and congested. Users struggle to know what to click to look at profiles. When asked to connect with with banjo steve the user clicked on the blue star rather than the green message icon. The user wanted to see a profile picture rather than a green note icon on the map, this would give them more incentive to click on the bubbles on the map.
Overall, the users were pleased with the app layout and design. There are some little things that misguided the users that were easy fixes. They enjoyed searching and locating new profiles and discovering other musicians.
