Jasmine Lin
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KEXP Music Discovery

KEXP Music Discovery Tool

KEXP is a nonprofit arts organization serving music lovers and artists through in-person, broadcast, and online programming. In this phase, we defined the design direction for the platform so that a first version prototype can be built. We create experience requirements by talking to target users, and pillars that align to those requirements. We also define the primary use cases and scenarios that we can illustrate to generate enthusiasm internally and get further feedback from users.

 

Research

We started with competitive analysis in order to gain understanding of the market opportunity.

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We defined the primary target users were KEXP DJs and the first version product needs to support and extend DJs’ current creative process instead of breaking it.

In order to gain insights on DJs’ experience of LIVE performance and how they discover new music, we interviewed them. There were a couple pain points that stood out: 

  • Their attention was divided while performing LIVE shows because of the workspace and tools. They were making connections all the time from multiple sources.

  • DJs use disparate media to prep and plan their shows

  • Tribal knowledge is key. DJs have conversation over time. They leverage each others insight to do better performance.

  • Every DJ has unique workflow

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Ideation

We listed out experience requirements according to the pain points we discovered during research. Including:

Must haves — 

  • Must allow DJs to maintain their unique processes: enable them to have their own custom workspace that is consistent and easy to access

  • More curation time, less wrangling with technology

  • Collect all disparate pieces of information they need in one centralized location.

  • Album art visuals that inspire connections

  • Enable the conversations that DJs currently have around particular tracks, album and artists

  • Quick access to historical data including past conversations

Must not — 

  • Interfere with artist process and existing flow

  • Must not add another disconnected tool to existing workflow

  • Try to replace physical media

We mapped out user journey from DJ prepping for LIVE show to actually playing music. 

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We listed design principles for future phase to focus on. We also brainstormed of scenarios enabled by the platform. The idea is to illustrate enough of these to provide a broad vision of the product possibilities.